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Dr. Mohammed Omran participated in the first session of the Arab Sustainability Week, which is held in Cairo from May 14-17, and organized by the Arab League in cooperation with the United Nations and the World Bank.
The Egyptian Exchange Chairman participated in the first session entitled "General and Global Concepts of Sustainability", the session was moderated by World Bank's Deputy Director, Dr. Mahmoud Mohieldin, Mr. Muhannad Hadi, World Food Program (WFP) Regional Director and Mr. Guangzhe CHEN, Senior Director for the Water Global Practice (GP).
During the session, Dr. Mohammed Omran presented some figures indicating the global trend towards sustainability comparing it with its levels in Arab countries. This trend is indicated through the witnessed activity in the debt markets, where, there was a huge increase in investments for sustainable development. For example, the value of issuance of green bonds in 2016 exceeded US$ 42 billion, which was 15 times higher than their levels recorded in 2012. Unfortunetly, despite this global interest and activity, the region's share of this kind of bond issuance is almost zero.
The EGX Chairman also addressed the role of capital markets in applying sustainability, due to their ability to reach most of the private sector companies. He indicated as well the importance of stock exchanges role in providing sustainable financial instruments.
Dr.Omran also pointed out that the Arab countries do not have a share of the current remarkable activity in the issuance of financial instruments and products which are related to the objectives of sustainability, for example, the 46 carbon markets.
During his speech, Dr. Omran reviewed the efforts of the Egyptian Stock Exchange in the field of sustainability, explaining the organization's contribution in formulating the international initiative to improve the efforts of the stock exchanges in sustainability, progressing under the auspices of the United Nations Secretariat which seeks the achievement of sustainability goals.
The President of the Egyptian Exchange explained that the strategy of the Egyptian Stock Exchange in this framework is based on three main axes:
At the end of his speech in the "Arab Week for Sustainability", Dr. Omran urged to create a clear strategy to be adopted by the Arab governments to support the sustainability approach. He also stressed on the need for incentives to increase the private sector's commitment to sustainability, besides creating programs to increase its capacities in that field.
