Bucharest Stock Exchange manager: Local regulations and red tape discourage foreign investments in stocks

The Romanian capital market needs changes in regulations and laws that are currently discouraging foreign investments in local shares. Listing major companies in the next year will not solve the market’s liquidity problem, according to Ludwik Sobolewski, general manager of the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BSE),. “Even if we’d have 10 Romgaz IPOs in 2014, the stock exchange’s issues would not be solved and the market situation would not change substantially. We’d have some excellent IPOs again, with very good beginnings, then turnovers would start dropping again,” said Sobolewski, quoted by local daily Wall-street.ro. “Now we pay for the lack of openness that Romania and the Romanian capital market have towards foreign investors. The regulations and requirements imposed to foreign investors have to be changed,” he added. In Sobolewski’s opinion, foreigners don’t trade Romanian shares not because they have a bad opinion about a certain company, but because they reject the barriers and requirements that must be met to enter the local market. “We are the only country in the EU where, in order to enter on the market, investors must have fiscal agents. Other things are added to this, such as the mountain of documents that they have to provide, or that not all the companies listed in Romania distribute their dividends directly through the Depositary,” explained the BSE manager. Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com