(Vienna) Starting today, the stock exchanges of Vienna and Belgrade have joined forces to work together in the field of indices. The General Manager of the Belgrade Stock Exchange (BELEX), Gordana Dostanic, and Michael Buhl, Joint CEO of Wiener Börse AG, signed an index cooperation agreement today in Belgrade. The Serbian Traded Index (SRX), which currently tracks the eight largest and most liquid stocks on the Belgrade Stock Exchange, will be launched today in euro, US dollar and Serbian dinar.
“The two exchanges will benefit from the Serbian country index SRX. The liquidity on the BELEX will rise and Wiener Börse will once again prove its worldwide recognized index expertise for Eastern Europe and Southeast Europe,” said Mr. Buhl. Furthermore, the SRX will draw the international attention to the Belgrade Stock Exchange that it needs to develop successfully.
“By establishing relation with Wiener Börse through this contract, BELEX has the possibility of getting experience and new expert knowledge in development of the stock exchange index, with the accent on their marketing and sale, especially having in view that Wiener Börse develops, calculates and publishes indexes”, says Gordana Dostanic.
The Belgrade Stock Exchange is one of the booming markets in Southeast Europe: Market capitalization was EUR 10.24bn at the end of 2006, which corresponds to an increase of 53 percent vs. 2005. The entire annual trading volume on BELEX was around EUR 1.2bn in 2006.
Like all indices of Wiener Börse, the SRX has been designed as a tradable index that can serve as underlying for structured products and derivatives. Including the SRX, Wiener Börse now calculates and disseminates a total of 22 indices, of which 16 relate to Eastern Europe and Southeast Europe, clearly indicating the focus. Wiener Börse also enjoys international renown for its indices: 80% of all structured products worldwide are based on the Eastern and Southeast European indices of Wiener Börse.