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Baltic Stock Exchanges Monthly Statistics February 2002

Date 15/03/2002

Riga

In February the total Latvian capital market trading turnover reached EUR 75.56 (LVL 42.12) million, exceeding the previous month volume by 15%. Equity market trading was EUR 1.14 (LVL 0.64) million, while trading in debt market was, habitually, more intensive-EUR 74.43 (LVL 41.49) million.

Equity market capitalization decreased by EUR 17.94 (LVL 10) million to EUR 692.93 (LVL 386.27) million during the month. The total nominal value of debt securities at the end of month amounted to EUR 477.20 (LVL 266.01) million.

Price index RICI showed an increase of 4.58% or 7.69 points during the last month. In the meantime, the capitalization index Dow Jones RSE decreased by 3.28% or 6.17 points.

The majority of shares experienced price gain during February: on average, seven out of ten of Secondary List companies appreciated by almost 10%, the other 3 closed at the previous month's price level. Also, the price of Official and Baltic List company Ventspils nafta remained unchanged, while the only share price fall was that of Latvijas Gaze.

Latvijas Gaze share price dropped by nearly 5%, just like in January, and due to its substantial cap weight, also influenced the negative trend of Dow Jones RSE and the capitalization. Latvijas Gaze shares were traditionally the most traded stocks on the exchange, constituting about 60% of the total equity market turnover.

It should be said that the auctions of 20,000 recently issued 5-year and 7-year mortgage bonds were held on February 7 and 12. All the securities were sold for the average annual yield of 6.2%, and the total turnover was EUR 4.66 (LVL 2.6) million.

In January, according to the Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia, the observed inflation in Latvia exceeded the December's rate by 0.9%. As of February 1 the unemployment rate stood at 7.9%.

Tallinn

TSE turnover was 32.6 million euros in February, which is stable to higher compared to the previous month. TALSE index rose by 6.26% during the month to close at 174.05.

On February 25, Tallinn Stock Exchange (TSE) successfully implemented HEX's trading system, creating a common trading environment for Estonian and Finnish securities. The move represented the introduction of HEX Tallinn, the group for HEX's activities in Estonia consisting of Tallinn Stock Exchange and Estonian CSD.

Trading in Estonian securities now takes place in euros on HEX's trading platform in a harmonised regulative environment. In addition to the Estonian brokers, the TSE listed securities are now accessible to HEX members. Mandatum Stockbrokers and Nordea Securities started as first Helsinki-based trading members of TSE on February 25. TSE has also approved membership applications of Credit Suisse First Boston (Europe), Evli Bank and Kaupthing Sofi.

Estonia's economy grew by 5.5% during the fourth quarter of 2001 according to early estimates by the Statistics Office.

Vilnius

As usual, trading in February was rather thin, yet, its tendencies differed from the course of trading during other months. The total securities turnover, amounting to EUR 24.7 million (LTL 85.3 million), was by 4.3% larger as compared to the corresponding month of the previous year. Nevertheless, it accounted for only 54% of trading volumes recorded in January, which has been the case for the previous two years. Trading during the month was marked by the growth of share demand.

Investors were mainly interested in shares of the new energy companies Rytø Skirstomieji Tinklai and Vakarø Skirstomieji Tinklai, AB Snaigë, AB Sanitas, and AB Lietuvos Telekomas. Share demand increased nearly sixfold and for the first time in the history of the Stock Exchange exceeded share supply which improved by 88%. Share supply-demand ratio was as low as 0.5, which presumably limited the growth of the trading volumes.

A greater number of small block trades concluded is another distinctive element of trading on the Stock Exchange this month. The number of transactions tripled, whereas the average value of a transaction in both shares and debt securities halved.

As compared to January, the stake of share turnover (EUR 7.5 million (LTL 26 million)) in the total trading volume slightly decreased and made up 31%. Central market share turnover accounted for the bigger half (54%) in the total turnover (cf. 43% in January 2002, 13.3% in 2001, and 15.8% in 2000). This is a new phenomenon on the equity market as well. Central market share turnovers of individual companies were larger than the biggest turnovers by block transactions. The largest central market turnovers were generated by Snaigë and Lietuvos Telekomas - over EUR 0.9 million (LTL 3 million). The largest turnover by block transactions fell to shares of the privatised AB Tireksa Œ EUR 0.6 million (LTL 2 million). It should be noted that this was the third year when central market share turnover of February has been growing: from EUR 2.6 million (LTL 9 million) in 2000 to EUR 4.1 million (LTL 14 million) this year.