Azerbaijan’s Financial Markets Supervisory Authority
(FIMSA) and World Bank have today hosted a conference to discuss
the results of the Capital Markets Modernization Project (CMMP)
supported by the World Bank and Switzerland’s State Secretariat for
Economic Affairs (SECO). The conference was attended by the
representatives of the Government of Azerbaijan, World Bank,
international development partners, private business community,
civil society and media. Participants took stock of Azerbaijan’s
path in modernizing its capital markets, and discussed future
challenges and actions to deepen financial markets and make capital
market an important source of financing the country’s private
sector growth and economic diversification.
Rufat Aslanli, Chairman of the Board of Directors of FIMSA,
said: "CMMP has provided organizational and operational support to
modernization of Azerbaijan’s capital markets. It has supported
implementation of Azerbaijan’s national program for development of
securities market, and made important contribution to creating
state-of-the-art legal and operational infrastructure, and building
capacity of the market."
Rolf Berhnd, World Bank’s Practice Manager for Finance and
Markets, said: "Improved access to finance for SMEs and increased
foreign direct investments are crucial for non-oil sector
development and modernization in Azerbaijan. Capital market is one
of the key vehicles for domestic and international investment
mobilization, but it requires concerted efforts, holistic reforms
and time to do it right."
"CMMP supported a package of reforms needed to diversify the
financial sector and ease the access to alternative financing tools
for Azerbaijani companies operating in the non-oil sectors. We
believe that effects of the project will be transformational and
long-lasting," said Angela Prigozhina, World Bank’s senior
financial sector specialist and the team leader for the
project.
CMMP was approved on March 17, 2011 with a $12 million loan from
the World Bank, supplemented by SECO Trust Fund grant of $1.6
million. The Project closed on July 1, 2016. It supported capital
market reform program through four components aimed at enhancement
of legal and regulatory framework for capital market, development
of a modern capital market infrastructure for securities trading,
clearing, settlement and surveillance, increased transparency,
access and awareness of market participants, issuers and potential
investors about capital market opportunities, and enhanced capacity
of the financial regulator to enforce sound market conduct rules
and investor protection practices.
Among notable results of the project are enactment in July of
2015 of the modern Law on Securities and implementation of new
regulatory requirements and normative acts in line with the best
international practices, establishment of Centralized Trading
System (CETA) which linked investors, market-players, Baku Stock
Exchange and National Depositary Center in a single trading and
post-trading system, and thus, significantly reduced transaction
time and costs. The project also helped streamline listing
requirements at the Baku Stock Exchange and build capacity of 16
local companies under the Listing Advisory Program (LAP) to raise
more than half a billion manats from the domestic capital
market.