June 24 (SeeNews) - Contrary to the other bourses in Southeast Europe, the Macedonian stock exchange is unlikely to experience any major impact of the Brexit vote in the short term, the head of local brokerage Investbroker commented on Friday.
The Macedonian blue-chip index was down 0.50% by 14:30 local time, whereas the MSE bond index, the OMB, remained flat. Turnover on the official market stood at 16.97 million denars ($314,100/276,600), of which 15.3 million denars was generated by trade in denationalisation bonds.
Turnover levels are very low, even good stocks are not traded, Kiril Mitrovski told SeeNews. "We expect a stir in September or October," he added without elaborating.
The ongoing political crisis in the country has greater impact on Macedonia's economy than the Brexit vote, Mitrovski also said.
Macedonia has been locked in a political crisis since January 2015. Back then the leader of the opposition SDSM Zoran Zaev accused the coalition government of the conservative VMRO-DPMNE and ethnic-Albanian DUI of corruption, wiretapping illegally more than 20,000 people and covering-up a murder. For its part, the government charged Zaev with trying to destabilise the country. In an attempt to solve the political deadlock, the main political parties, with the mediation of the EU and the US, signed the Przino agreement last July, calling early elections for April 24. The polls were later postponed for June 5 under pressure from the EU and the US, which insisted that Macedonia needed more time to meet the international community's requirements for organising credible elections. On May 18, Macedonia's parliament cancelled the June 5 vote, without setting a new date.
($=53.82 denars)