BOARD OF RA CENTRAL BANK DECIDES TO CANCEL
REGISTRATION OF 88 ISSUERS AT ARMENIAN STOCK EXCHANGE

AZG Armenian Daily #135, 20/07/2006

According to the press service of RA central Bank, the Board of
RA Central Bank took the decision not to object the cancel of the
registration of 88 other issuers under review at the Armenian Stock
Exchange. The same decision was taken for other nine CJSCs last
month. Thus, from the shares registered at the stock exchange of about
190 issuers, not less than 100 are left at present. The experts state
that these steps of RA CB are conditioned by the May 25,2006, decision
of RA CB. According to this decision, the existence of independent
capital of AMD 500 million is a compulsory criteria for the status of
an issuer to pass the listing at the stock exchange for the OJSCs. The
rest of the companies with less amount of capital may preserve their
registration. Earlier, the compulsory limit for an OJSC to pass the
registration was AMD 5 million. The experts state that such decision
of CB is the first positive step for the development of the organized
market of securities after RA CB received the legal right to carry out
the function of the financial regulator. According to the experts,
it’s senseless to make the issuers under review exist at the market
fictitiously, as hardly any company may "boast" about its popularity,
by the existence of the principles for corporate management and the
minority defence system. The experts state that there are many pocket
but totally non-transparent companies that do not need to attract the
capital from the stock exchange, do not want to be open and aren’t
interested in the foreign investors. According to the experts, after
"cleansing" the organized market of the securities, the most leading
and organized companies will remain in the market. At present there
are 190 OJSCs included in the listing of the Armenian Stock Exchange
and not more than 40 of them will remain at the market of securities.