Federal Securities Commission Criticizes Russian Stock Exchanges

The Russian Federal Securities Commission is not satisfied with the state of stock exchanges in this country, chairman of the commission Igor Kostikov announced at the conference 'History and the current situation on the Russian stock market'. He stressed that stock exchanges should become one of the key factors in regulating the stock market and they do not fulfill this function at present. Kostikov announced that the Securities Commission will start settling this problem in 2002 by accumulating capital assets on exchanges and setting up the control system for them. In addition, authorities are going to elaborate on a bill on securities that will be registered on Russian exchanges and on a concept for regulating risks of professional participants of the securities market. According to Kostikov, western experts, who want to see participants of the Russian stock market as strong partners, are also concerned about the state of Russian stock exchanges. Finally, the head of the Federal Securities Commission reported that they are conducting a policy aimed at deregulating the Russian stock market and transferring some functions of the Securities Commission to exchanges. "The market should be regulated on its own," Kostikov concluded.