A Plan to Revive Algiers Stock Exchange Within 4 Years

The government is preparing to revive the Algiers Stock Exchange as a financial body that provides financing solutions and alternatives to accompany small, medium and emerging enterprise projects, and plays a role in restoring dormant liquidity in the black market.

This comes in parallel with preparing to open the capital of two public banks through the stock exchange and preparing the legal grounds for launching Islamic financial instruments, which are expected to be ready at the end of the current year.

In a related context, the chair of the Commission for Regulating and Observing Stock Exchange Operations (COSOB), Youcef Bouznada, held, on Monday, a working session with the general managers of approved investment capital companies, an investment company with variable capital, the Algeria Investment Company, the Algerian Financial Participation Finalep, the Ecosia Capital Company, the Algerian Investment Fund, and the National Fund for Financing Startups and SMEs.

The meeting was devoted to studying the axes of the strategic plan 2023-2027, which is expected to be launched by the committee soon, in consultation with actors in the financial area. The outcome of the activity of investment capital companies during 2022 was also reviewed, in addition to discussing the challenges and difficulties facing the development of this critical activity, to propose appropriate solutions given the capabilities that it can contribute to financing the economy, especially for the benefit of startups and SMEs.

According to Echorouk sources, the meeting also discussed the draft preparation of the new regulatory text for the work mechanisms of the Algiers Stock Exchange, following the consultation launched by the committee in this regard.

COSOB (commission for regulating and observing stock exchange operations) had launched a consultation for the financial area regarding the preparation of a new text for regulating and framing the work mechanisms of the Stock Exchange, to replace the current regulation 03-97 issued on November 18, 1997. This initiative comes as an embodiment of the new vision of the committee that aims to update and harmonize the regulatory texts that fall within its jurisdiction to adapt them to the current and dynamic requirements of the national economy, as well as to the government’s plan to diversify the national economy and its funding sources.

This consultation includes actors in the financial area and dealers in the financial market, namely the management company of the Stock Exchange, the central trustee of bonds, brokers in stock exchange operations, banks, insurance companies, risk capital companies, and representatives of the two bodies, as the latter was devoted to defining the outlines of the draft system.

Through this initiative, the COSOB seeks to issue a comprehensive system that is in line with international practices and standards in the field of financial markets, knowing that other meetings will be held in the future within the framework of preparing for the new draft law.

Hacene Khelifati, the CEO of “Alliance Insurance” company, which is active in the stock exchange, says that reviving the stock exchange requires first improving its management methods, digitizing it, and eliminating bureaucracy and outdated administrative methods in its management.

The Algiers Stock Exchange, according to Khelifati, remains weak in trading today, given the number of participants in it and the volume of trading, stressing that the stock exchange’s management texts are identical to what is found abroad, but the practice, in reality, collides with banks’ fears of risk and the adoption of classic methods of management, which imposes a comprehensive change in mindsets and removal of obstacles so that the stock exchange succeeds in transforming into one of the mechanisms of financing the economy and a means to attract sleeping money in the black market.