the interview with the chairman of the egx
- Mr. Mohamed Farid Saleh
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In the frames of 7th Onsite Training of FEAS which was hosted by FEAS member Egyptian Exchange the Member Relations Manager of FEAS - Ms. Ani Alikhanyan, had an interview with Mr. Mohamed Farid Saleh, Chairman of the Egyptian Stock Exchange (EGX).
Read the article below to explore about the current and upcoming developments of EGX.
Good afternoon Mr. Farid Saleh,
Firstly I would like to thank you for co-organizing and hosting FEAS 7th Onsite Training.
Let's start our interview with the following question:
How would you characterize the stock market currently?
- I would characterize it as improving. We are trying to implement an aggressive reform plan
that touches the entire value chain of the Egyptian capital markets. From a supply side, as represented by the companies listed and the quality of disclosures, this involves looking at the communication between listed companies and investment banks, asset managers and brokerage companies. We’ve made plenty of effort in this area. We are also working on the intermediation aspect of the markets – the systems of trading, providing more capacity for investors to trade freely, in this environment – while introducing new financial products and tools to be traded in the market. And then we have the demand side, which basically involves facilitating the communication and the enquiry process by investors and trying to create broader financial or investment literacy. We’re working with companies on this on a one-to-one basis, because we need more participation. If you adopt a 20-25 year investment horizon, incremental saving approach, you’re definitely better off investing in capital markets compared to other investment vehicles in general.
If we’re talking about in 25 years having a growing middle income class that is, relatively speaking, wealthier than what we’re seeing now in terms of per capita GDP or per capita income, it has to happen through the capital markets. One amongst several clear differences between Egypt and other advanced markets relates to private pension schemes. In many advanced markets, the pension and insurance systems are quite large, and they are quite well equipped for these types of investments, so participation is high. For economies like Egypt, we still need to work on expanding the pension system on the one hand and promoting education for the pensioners to be able to invest their money in capital markets, on the other.
Mr. Mohamed Farid Saleh
Chairman of the Egyptian Exchange (EGX)