KSE joins SAFE to launch South Asian Index

Posted on 01.26.07 by StockPK Team @ 11:31 am    

The Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) has inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), on Thursday, with South Asian Federation of Exchanges (SAFE) and its member countries to launch a joint South Asian Index in future.

M A Lodhi, Managing Director, KSE, singed MoU on behalf of the local bourse at a press briefing on “SAFE Regional & Pakistan Indices”, held here at KSE premises.

SAFE is an organisation for regional cooperation comprising of nineteen (19) member entities of eight South Asian Countries.

The representatives of Nepal Stock Exchange, Dhaka Stock Exchange and Bombay Stock Exchange, who were also here to participate in a two-day SAFE meeting concluded in the city on Thursday, also signed the said MoU along with KSE.

Among other SAFE members countries that included Maldives and Mauritius have approved to enter in this MoU later on, while remaining two i.e. Sri Lanka and Bhutan had taken no decision yet in this regard, Rajnikant Patel, Chairman-SAFE and Managing Director and MD-Bombay Stock Exchange told media at briefing.

However, no time framework has been set to launch the said index, he said and added that SAFE member countries were working on this project since last six years.

This index has been developed with the help of Dow Jones Indexes, he further said, while A. Rushdi Siddiqui, Global Director of Islamic Market Index Group of Dow Jones said that his company had a vast experience of designing European Common Index and was applying the same expertise here too.

SAFE established in January 2000 in Bangladesh on the initiative of the Chittagong Stock Exchange, however, the Secretariat has now been permanently shifted to Islamabad - Pakistan.

Prime objective of SAFE is to provide a forum for regional cooperation and to facilitate the development of securities market in the South Asian Region for mutual economic growth and development.

SAFE has been endeavoring to initiate Cross Border Listing and Trading amongst the regional countries. The development of a South Asian Index is a key project, which shall serve to represent the investment potential of the region.

The regional index has been developed in collaboration with Dow Jones Indexes, aimed at measuring and reflecting the performance of leading stocks of the prominent market sectors, listed at the SAFE member exchanges.

The index shall not only provide an overview of the performance of SAFE equity markets as a regional grouping, but also serve as an underlying tool for developing new investment products in the region.

Source: The News