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Under the patronage of His Excellency Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al-Thani, Prime Minister and Minister of Interior, H.E Mr. Ali Shareef Al Emadi, Minister of Finance, opened today the World Exchange Congress 2014 held in Doha during the period 25 – 26 March, 2014 at the St. Regis Hotel.
In the opening speech, HE Mr. Ali Shareef Al Emadi, Minister of Finance, extended his thanks to the management of Qatar Stock Exchange for hosting the conference and hoped that this occasion would provide the participants with the opportunity to adopt the best practices aimed at ensuring an investment-supportive environment through partnerships, mutual cooperation and exchange of expertise.
“Qatar Exchange has witnessed many achievements that have contributed to the strengthening of its role as a regional financial center, especially after the MSCI upgrading of the Qatari market into emerging market status. The 2012 law, giving the Qatar Central Bank the supreme authority in the supervision of all financial services and markets, is an important step in promoting financial stability,” the Minister stated.
H.E the Minister also highlighted that Qatar is prominent and well known for having one of the best economies in the world with a GDP growth by 6.5% in 2013 and an estimated GDP growth rate up to 6% and more than 10% growth rate in the private sector in 2014.
He added that the Qatari economy has witnessed several important developments, mainly the increasing contribution of non-oil sectors in the economic growth of the State of Qatar as a result of the policies and strategies adopted by the government, which were mainly based on developing the private sector contribution in the economic development.
“Qatar has been supportive of investment opportunities. Based on its strong, robust and open economy, Qatar seeks to become a business hub in the region. No doubt that the economic policies adopted by the Qatari government would enable the Qatari institutions to play an important role in order to achieve sustainability and adaption to global changes,” the Minister stated.
He explained that “the importance of stock exchanges stems from their role in economic growth based on encouragement of economic diversification, capital creation and support of corporate activities. On this basis, the role of the government is needed to ensure a regulatory environment and policies that are needed to encourage investment environment.
During the opening ceremonies of the conference, Mr. Rashid bin Ali Al-Mansoori, CEO of Qatar Exchange, welcomed the participants and delivered a speech in which he described the conference as "the most prestigious and respected platform for the exchange community and financial markets because it is the largest global gathering that brings together CEOs, CTOs, and other senior executives from exchange and trading venues around the globe."
Mr. Al-Manssori stated that Qatat Exchange hopes that this event will provide a forum where key executives in global exchanges and capital markets can educate, discuss and forge solid strategic relationships. In addition to that, we aim to equip exchanges with the tools they need to make strategic decision in order to ensure growth and stability.
“we can share and discuss our mutual ambitions of achieving growth and progress. We hope that this conference will be an opportunity for all of us to see the positive results of the tireless efforts made by Qatar's stock market in order to reach an advanced level among the region's and the world's markets. These efforts resulted in many achievements despite the political and economic turmoil witnessed by the region” he added.
Mr. Al-Mansoori noted that Qatar Stock Exchange has achieved significant progress and made remarkable achievements at legislative and technical levels, infrastructure and systems, disclosure and governance practices, awareness-raising and spreading the culture of investment; and the diversification of investment tools and services provided to investors.
"We are proud to say that in light of our strategic plan, Qatar Stock Exchange managed to bring about changes to its infrastructure, thus achieve the objective of transforming the Qatar Stock Exchange into a world-class exchange working in line with the world's best practices and enjoying advanced systems, laws and regulations to promote transparency and provide investors with proper and diversified investment tools. Qatar Stock Exchange had reached another major mile-stone in its drive to develop a world-class financial centre in Doha with the introduction of Scila surveillance system and the Universal Trading Platform (UTP) incorporating state-of-the-art technology", he said.
He explained that: "the keenness to develop Qatar Stock Exchange is attributed to the fact that the stock market plays a pivotal role in achieving economic and financial development through developing listed companies in the one hand and providing public investors with investment opportunities on the other hand In order to achieve this objective, Qatar Stock Exchange has been characterized for its transparency and governance to ensure safe investments for all types of investors. Qatar Stock Exchange is also characterized as the perfect place to invest in different sectors as a result for having listed companies that belong to different sectors. These listed companies are not only the largest companies in Qatar, but they are also amongst the largest companies in the region".
Mr. Al-Mansoori added that: "Over the past few years, Qatar Stock Exchange has achieved significant growth since its inception. It is now a well-established national institution that offers various investment opportunities for local and international investors. Qatar Stock Exchange has become the link between listed companies and individual investors who realize that the stock market represents a saving and investment destination at the same time".
"Based on this pivotal role, Qatar Stock Exchange has introduced various mechanisms to assist investors, including DvP, liquidity provision and DMA schemes. In addition, QE has introduced a number of new investment tools such as bonds and treasury bills, as well as assisting in licensing a number of banks as custodians, launching various new indices, creating QE’s Venture Market dedicated to SME’s, and allowing banks to perform financial service activities in the market”, Mr. Al-Mansoori elaborated.
With regard to attracting foreign investment, the Qatar Stock Exchange continued its quest to provide the best practices for attracting foreign investments to the domestic market. “For example, we worked on improving liquidity and expanding the membership base and custodians; facilitating listing procedures and developing investment products; and improving disclosure and transparency applications”, he said.
Mr. Al-Mansoori stated that "the MSCI and S&P decisions to upgrade the Qatari market from a Frontier to Emerging Market status clearly and evidently reflect the recognition of the prominent international investment institutions of the positive steps made by Qatar Exchange over the past years, in terms of the development of the market infrastructure and the implementation of a number of important projects and initiatives, which were welcomed by the international financial and investment institutions. It is to be noted that the upgrade of Qatar status reflects meeting the qualitative requirements for inclusion in Emerging markets, especially the degree of openness of the market to the international investment community and an established and well-tested operational framework. These upgrades are a very positive step for the development of Qatar Stock Exchange and are likely to enhance the trustworthiness of the market and consequently attract foreign portfolios."
Concluding his speech, Mr. Al-Mansoori exprsssed his sincere thanks to His Excellency Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani, Prime Minister and Minister of Interior, for his patronage of the conference. He also thanked the organizers, sponsors and partcipants of the conference who helped to make it a successful event.
The congress, which included interactive roundtables, debates and workshops and live interviews with major Exchange CEOs, focused on developing the exchange and financial markets business and performance across Europe, the Middle East, America, Asia and Africa. The sessions, which are held for two days, deal with various subjects such as the increasing revenue by allowing market participants to purchase technology, trading and post-trade and non-trading related services at one trading venue; diversification of revenue streams in 2014 and beyond; globalization and diversification to Increase exchange revenues in 2014; and new trading technology for exchanges.
The World Exchanges Congress, which holds its 9th annual session in Qatar for the first time in the region, is the largest CEO level Exchange event in the world, is widely recognized as the most prestigious and respected platform for senior exchange and trading venue executives and their partners. The Congress, which is the largest global gathering of the exchange community brought together about three hundred CEOs, CTOs and senior executives, representing more than fifty countries.
