December 8 (SeeNews) - The Ljubljana Stock Exchange (LJSE) has become an active member of the SEE Link network enabling trading on the respective market, the bourse said on Thursday.
LJSE is the second stock exchange, not including the three founding bourses, to actively join the SEE Link network after the Belgrade Stock Exchange became an official member a few days ago, the Ljubljana bourse said in a filing.
The system aims to increase liquidity and improve access for investors and local brokers to the markets of Southeastern Europe (SEE).
"The Ljubljana Stock Exchange and Belgrade Stock Exchange are the latest stock exchanges from the SEE region to join the SEE Link and this is an important step towards a closer regional cooperation", Ales Ipavec, president of the LJSE management board, said in the filing. "Small stock exchanges from the SEE region cannot be really successful on their own and building strong links among the exchanges in such a way will lead to the creation of a strong and successful regional market", he added.
SEE Link is a project launched by the Bulgarian, Croatian and Macedonian stock exchanges with the aim of creating regional infrastructure for the trading of securities listed on those three markets. Formalising this cooperation, the three stock exchanges set up SEE Link as a joint company in May 2014, located in Skopje.
The EBRD supported the initial phase of the SEE Link project with a 540,000 euro ($582,700) grant, while funding for the project was provided by EBRD donors through the EBRD Shareholder Special Fund. In parallel, participating stock exchanges extended 80,000 euro.
SEE Link's order routing system became fully operational at the end of March this year. The two SEE Link indices ‒ SEE LinX and SEE LinX EWI ‒ were launched at the beginning of April, composed of the 10 most actively traded regional companies listed on the three participating exchanges.
With new markets accession, the indices revision is planned in the coming period in order to provide more representative overview of the market, LJSE said.
Besides the bourses in Ljubljana and Belgrade, three more stock exchanges are preparing to connect to SEE Link - Athens, Banja Luka and Montenegro. Several other stock exchanges in the region have also expressed interest to join, LJSE said.
LJSE noted that with its accession, the SEE Link order routing system now supports trading for five markets, with a combined market capitalisation of more than $38.5 billion and more than 500 stocks eligible for trading.
A total of 27 investment brokerage houses are licensed to trade via SEE Link. In addition, seven members of the Belgrade Stock Exchange are currently in the process of obtaining trading licenses.
($=0.926722 euro)