January 30 (SeeNews) - The Bucharest Stock Exchange [BSE: BVB] will continue aiming at increasing its turnover so that Romania is promoted to the emerging market status as soon as possible, the new chief executive officer of the bourse, Adrian Tanase, has said.
"The main goal of my term is to make the stock exchange reach its maximum potential in terms of turnover, and this can come from three directions," Tanase said in a statement on Monday.
On January 23, Romania's financial regulator ASF approved Tanase's appointment as CEO of the BVB for a four-year term. He is replacing Ludwik Sobolewski who resigned in October. Sobolewski had been CEO of the BVB since August 2013, when he replaced Vasile Cionga.
Tanase will focus on increasing new listings, improving access for investors and establishing a central counterparty clearing house (CCP).
"Promoting to the Emerging Market status will be a consequence of all these measures to increase turnover," Tanase stated.
The Bucharest bourse will also continue to develop its relationship with entrepreneurs through its Made in Romania project.
"The stock exchange is being advertised as a financing option. The new message we would like to pass on is that the stock exchange is the place where business transparency translates into money," Tanase said.
He also said that financial education projects will continue in simplified language to reach as many people as possible.
"It is important to increase financial literacy among population, and we need to simplify the message to retail investors."
Tanase, 43, graduated in 1998 from the Faculty of Cybernetics of the Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest. He has a professional experience of almost 20 years in the capital market, with focus on portfolio management.
The total value of transactions which took place on the BVB in 2017 exceeded 3 billion euro ($3.67 billion), 24% above the 2016 level and 28% over the average of the last 10 years.
The shares that investors bought in the companies from the BET-TR index, which includes dividends from BET companies, increased by over 19% last year. A growth rate of nearly 24% occurred for the BET-XT-TR index which tracks the most traded 25 companies listed on the BVB and the dividends they pay to investors.
BVB shares traded 0.67% lower at 29.8 lei as at 1018 CET on Tuesday.
($=0.8052 euro)