Concrete deadlines set for listing SOEs

Romanian Prime Minister Adrian Nastase on Tuesday presented the first governmental programme intended to support the capital market.

The authorities’ support for the capital market has so far been merely declarative. In fact, none of the moves that were announced on Tuesday can be considered novel, since each of the programme’s points can be traced back to statements issued by government officials over the past few years. The difference between the current programme and statements made so far is the fact that the plan includes concrete deadlines for the achievement of these previously cited objectives. The listing of seven state-owned enterprises (SOEs) is to be fulfilled gradually between the second quarter of 2005 and the end of year 2006. T-bills are supposed to start trading on the bourse this September or October, while the primary and secondary legislation linked to mortgages is to be finalised by the middle of next year.

“We have three targets: to diversify the financial instruments on offer, to improve the infrastructure of the market and to bolster demand,” Adrian Nastase stated. However, the first move is to be applied as late as this autumn.

The proposed measures largely point to a diversification of opportunities that the capital market can offer investors. Nastase specified that the Government wants to show its support for the financing mechanisms offered by the capital market, so that private companies can take these alternatives into consideration when searching for means of financing.
vlad.nicolaescu@zf.ro