Key securities' dealers to activate ESE

A new decision has been taken to find out a market for the government's securities "key dealers" with an attempt to revitalize the capital market and draw up a good management system for local debts, Finance Minister Medhat Hassanein has recently disclosed.

Regarding the Finance Minister's decision to set up a system for the securities "key dealers," Hassanein said that it aims at enforcing an open-market, ensuring the market-maker's role in such a system, assisting in reducing the domestic debt, contributing to the capital market's stability and opening new markets for investment.

According to the decision, the new mechanism includes dealings in the previous as well as the future treasury bonds and securities.

In line with this new system, the "key dealers'' involve the firms registered in the Finance Ministry according to the categories set by the Minister. These dealers envisage only banks which need an authorization from the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) as well as bonds brokerage companies.

The dealers should commit to guarantee covering the government issuance and activate dealings in the Egyptian Stock Exchange (ESE), according to Hassanein.

Moreover, the Finance Minister is to be entrusted with issuing the decisions on regulating the rights and commitments of the key dealers who are, in turn, assigned to report to the Finance Ministry on the dealing activities.

On means of managing the state's assets in an untraditional way, Hassanein said that high priority should be initially given to the commodity stocks management and set up a determined way for getting rid of such stocks. This is regarded as a vital step for activating public spending, the Minister said.

Most of the economic authorities are suffering from structural failure as the invested assets hit L.E. 420 billion, while their yields do not exceed half a percent, Hassanein admitted.

The file of these authorities, accordingly, should be opened to probe means of effectively managing these assets and strike a balance between debts and the capability of managing discounts, the Minister believes.

On the National Investment Bank (NIB), Hassanein said that serious debates are under way on means of developing the NIB role in promoting the private sector seeking long-term funding through the bank.