RTS President Remarks On Russian Stock Market's Full Recovery After 1998 Crisis

The year 2001 has been better than the previous year for the Russian stock market, in terms of both the results of companies' operations and the functioning of the infrastructure. RTS President Ivan Tyryshkin gave this opinion in an interview with RBC. "We have finally fully recovered after the 1998 crisis in terms of some indicators, such as capitalization of companies, the number of deals and Western clients' interest in our market," he emphasized. He pointed put that although there had been some nuances related to the crisis of September 11th during the year, "we should characterize the past year rather well." In Tyryshkin's view, the trend towards a reduction in the number of stock exchanges on the Russian stock market has continued in 2001. "From this viewpoint, the dynamics of 1998-1999 have been retained," he believes. At the same time, in Tyryshkin's opinion, this trend is positive, since the Russian stock market is not big enough in terms of the trade volume and the number of investors. "The operation of 11-12 exchanges is irrational in terms of the cost for market participants," Tyryshkin pointed out. In his view, the number of exchanges will continue to decrease gradually, and the fact that new requirements for exchanges' own capitals will be introduced beginning July 2002 will boost this process. At the same time he thinks that the leading exchanges meet the new license conditions, and are adequate to the existing infrastructure.