The Egyptian Stock Exchange seeks to launch an index compatible with Islamic law during the first half of next year, as part of its effort to attract new investors to the financial market, according to Ahmed Al-Sheikh, Chairman of the Stock Exchange’s Board of Directors, to Al-Sharq.
The index will include shares of companies whose activities and financial and accounting conditions are consistent with the provisions of Islamic Sharia, and will be selected by the Sharia Supervision Committee of the Financial Supervisory Authority.
New companies
The Egyptian Stock Exchange is talking with 3 to 4 medium-sized private sector companies to register them in the financial market, as revealed by the sheikh, who refused to go into details regarding the companies’ sectors or names.
Ahmed Al-Sheikh was appointed Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Egyptian Stock Exchange, for a period of one year, starting from August 26, 2023.
Last February, Egypt announced that it would offer stakes in 32 companies over the course of a year, and this number later rose to 40 companies, but only Bakken Company was sold, and stakes in Al-Ezz Dekheila Steel, Egyptian Telecom, and Eastern Tobacco, all of which were companies that were not It was included in the initial offering program and was added later, whether after the sale or shortly before it.
The government also succeeded in selling shares in petroleum companies such as ETHYDCO, Elap, and Egyptian Drilling, which are part of the IPO program, and it expects to sell a national company before the end of 2023 and a number of energy projects.
Egyptian Stock Exchange: Launching the financial derivatives market next year
Promotional campaigns
The Sheikh revealed during his conversation with Al-Sharq that the Stock Exchange is working to launch promotional campaigns for investing in the stock market via social media in partnership with brokerage companies wishing to do so, in order to stimulate the market and attract a new segment of investors.
The main index of the Egyptian Stock Exchange jumped by about 58% since the beginning of the year until last Thursday’s session, and the market value of stocks increased by about 600 billion pounds during the same period.
The Egyptian Stock Exchange intends to initially list futures contracts on the main index EGX30 when the futures market begins, which the Sheikh did not go into any details about.
