(MENAFN- The Peninsula) Qatar stock market will see more initiatives in near future to boost the confidence of investors, said Rashid bin Ali Al Mansoori, CEO of Qatar Stock Exchange speaking in a panel discussion held during the Annual Conference of the Arab Federation of Exchanges (AFE), held yesterday in Dubai.
Speaking about the implications of the upgrade of the Qatari market status and inclusion in the MSCI Emerging Markets index, Al Mansoori said the reclassification process highlighted a number of issues that had been addressed by the exchange and other competent authorities in order to raise the efficiency of the market.
"I would like to thank all of the investment community, including MSCI, for the issues they highlighted a number of issues during the reclassification exercise. While upgrade brings immediate benefits of increased liquidity, market depth and institutional investor participation, we have really achieved improvements in the operational efficiency of our markets," said Al Mansoori. "The road does not end here. We have a long way to go. With this in mind, we have identified a number of other areas that will allow us to capitalise on the emerging market classification. Initiatives like expansion of securities lending and borrowing, margin trading, omnibus accounts, risk management and the introduction of a CCP will add further confidence to the robustness of the market infrastructure," he added.
The participation of Al Mansoori was to talk about the upgrade to emerging market status by both MSCI and S&P and the implications of that upgrade.
He also touched up on the lessons learned and the underlying implications resulting from the upgrade such as the increase in market liquidity and other advantages that could be leveraged, such as in the development of investor relations and the promotion of the principles of corporate governance. Al Mansoori said the key criteria of the MSCI upgrade was the operational efficiency of the market measured against both qualitative and quantitative MSCI standards, especially the degree of openness of the market to the international investment community and an established and well tested operational framework in line with international best practices.
"The upgrade of the Qatari market clearly and evidently reflected the recognition of the positive steps made by Qatar Stock Exchange over the past few years to meet the requirements of MSCI, in terms of the development of the market infrastructure and the implementation of a number of important projects and initiatives, which were welcomed by international financial and investment institutions," Al Mansoori added.
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