FEDERATION OF EURO-ASIAN STOCK EXCHANGES > YEARBOOK 2002/2003 > PAGE 76
TIRANA STOCK EXCHANGE
LETTER FROM THE GENERAL DIRECTOR
After a strenuous road, the Tirana Stock
Exchange has finally been established as
a stand-alone institution.
After a strenuous road, the Tirana Stock
Exchange (TSE) has finally been established
as a stand-alone institution. We are working
to establish and further develop a real stock
exchange to be accessed by everyone: by
the investing public who will attempt to find
the real value for their investments and also
for all those businesses that will choose the
as yet not-utilized capital-raising alternative
of securities issuance to finance their growth.
The new road is really tough and complex,
but will surely be the road of well-prepared
professionals, dedicated to creating a
modern, efficient and transparent securities
market in Albania.
Dr. Elvin Meka
General Director
HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT
The Securities Act was approved by the
Albanian Parliament on 1 March 1996. This
paved the way for the establishment of the
Albanian Securities Commission (ASC) on 16
April, and the Tirana Stock Exchange (TSE) on
2 May 1996. Once the law was approved, the
necessary rules and regulations of the ASC and
the TSE were prepared and adopted.
The TSE opened officially on 2 May 1996, as
the first exchange in the financial history of
Albania. The TSE was originally established as
a department of the Bank of Albania (BoA) with
the goal to spin it off as a separate institution
after a transition period of several years. At the
beginning, trading sessions were held twice a
week - every Monday and Thursday. By
October 1997, the sessions were increased to
every business day, and 3- and 6-month
maturity T-bills were added to the existing
instruments traded. Primary auctions for T-bills
were conducted by the TSE until 1 August 1998.
The major change in the legal framework of TSE
was the approval by the Parliament of some
additions and amendments to the actual
Securities Law, which came into force in March
2001. Under these new changes, the Ministry
of Finance has taken all practical steps to
develop and institutionalize the capital market
in Albania during 2002. In this way, the TSE has
been finally established for the first time in
March 2002, as an independent institution
(joint-stock company), with the sole owner, the
Ministry of Finance.
Actually, the TSE is taking all the necessary
steps to provide a smooth functioning of the
exchange as a joint-stock company. So during
this time, the staff of the TSE has worked hard
to complete the regulatory framework for TSE
activity, and has prepared all relevant
documents, which were finalized by obtaining
preliminary securities market’s license from the
Albanian Securities Commission in November
2002.
FUTURE OUTLOOK
The TSE expects to accomplish the following: 1. Stock market,
to obtain the final securities market license from
the Albanian Securities Commission; 2. T-Bills market (both primary and secondary),
to provide trading in currency and capital
markets’ instruments (i.e. short and long term
instruments). More precisely, the TSE will
attempt to operate the following markets:
3. Government and corporate bonds (both
primary and secondary).
to carry out a comprehensive marketing
campaign to promote the TSE and the financial
instruments to be traded; and
to participate in and coordinate efforts with the
privatization organization to develop a strategy
of privatization for both strategic and non-
strategic companies.