(MENAFN- Khaleej Times) The Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange, or ADX, plans to attract private joint stock companies, or PJSCs, to be listed on it in order to expand market volumes.
PJSCs under the law cannot be listed on the stock exchanges, and the ADX, which studied them as a vibrant investment option, has started pitching for an amendment to the law, so that such companies, whose shares are traded over-the-counter, can be encouraged to join the market, by floating their capital and be traded on the bourse, ADX chief executive officer Rashid Al Baloushi told reporters.
He said a number of PJSCs in Abu Dhabi have raised capital and were very active in the market. "But they are outside the system, and we want to see them traded on the ADX, to expand our product base and boost trading volumes," Al Baloushi said.
He said his team was working on devising a legal frame work as to how they would be traded, quoted on the market and laying a mechanism like the shares of PJSCs.
On his other plans for the year, Al Baloushi said the bourse, in cooperation with the Dubai Financial Market, or DFM, has completed 85 per cent work on laying out procedures and systems for the market makers, liquidity providers, margin trading and borrowing and lending, which were introduced by the Securities and Commodities Authority in October last year.
By the second quarter, Al Baloushi expects the new rules would be ready to be introduced to the market, which will give a big boost to market volumes.
The ADX has ambitions to become a regional capital market, with a diversified product base and where capital can be raised for the upcoming projects, he said.
Al Baloushi expected that a new electronic trading system - Xstream - will be offered in November this year, replacing the existing one.
A new leak-proof business continuity plan will be implemented this year, so that market operations are managed without fail in a crisis situation from a remote place.
The ADX will launch an international campaign to market its products especially the exchange trade funds by organising road shows, Al Baloushi said.
With ISO-9001 certification and other measures adopted by the bourse, Al Baloushi said the ADX has met the requirements of joining MSCI's emerging market index, which will give huge exposure worldwide.
The ADX, which has a market capitalisation of Dh250 billion, was rated the second best bourse in the world, after the DFM in the first two months of the year for a 15 per cent growth in the index.
By Haseeb Haider
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