USAID to help revive Tirana Stock Exchange

By Gajtis Bejleri
TIRANA, August 17 – USAID financial experts are looking to revive the Tirana Stock Exchange. Krszysztof Grabowski, a USAID expert, said there are hopes to reignite interests in the local stock market.In an interview to the media, Grabowski said USAID are on a project based on the Polish experience, in putting up one of the major components of today’s financial markets, the stock market. Grabowski added that not a lot of companies are expected to enter the Tirana Stock Exchange, but the situation is the same for most developing countries. “After realizing the project and regulating the laws dealing with such financial markets, we do not expect to have a lot of companies enter the market. But we’ve spoken to some of them, and they showed interest to have the chance to increase their finances and investments by entering a stock market,” said Grabowski. The Tirana Stock Exchange was officially opened on May 2, 1996, as part of the Central Bank of Albania, with the possibility to break off after a transition period. At the beginning it worked as an auction market for trading bonds with three, six and 12 month maturity periods, first released by the Government earlier in 1996. It detached itself from the Central Bank on July 1, 2002, and continued exist and function as a share holding company.