ATHEX wants tax abolition
The Athens Exchange (ATHEX) is at risk of losing foreign customers, or even seeing the main bulk of its business «transferred» to London after November 2007 if the taxes and other charges on transactions are not abolished, the bourse’s president, Spyros Kapralos, warned yesterday. «It is necessary to abolish the tax and urgently adapt Greek legislation to the new realities, so that the Greek market does not miss the train of competitiveness,» Kapralos said on the sidelines of the regional 4th International Capital Markets Conference, which opened in Thessaloniki yesterday. Kapralos explained that the markets in financial instruments directive (MiFID), which will come into effect on November 1, 2007, when it will replace the existing investment services directive (ISD), «internationalizes» transactions on stock markets, enabling foreign investors to place their money «at no cost in other places, such as on London’s platforms.» He said that if the necessary changes are implemented, the inflows of foreign capital onto the Athens bourse will continue, given that foreign investors take a positive view of the prospects of Greek listed companies, particularly as regards their expansion into the Balkans. Kapralos said that ATHEX’s new, semi-regulated market «will definitely start in the autumn,» adding that «many, particularly dynamic companies have expressed interest in being listed on it.» He said ATHEX aspires to grow into an «organizer» of markets in the region but the process of developing partnerships is difficult and slow, as the whole scheme also involves governments. MiFID will remove the monopolistic features that remain in some markets, and, «if it works properly, will bring healthy competition,» said Juuka Ruuska, president of OMX Nordic Exchange and vice president of the Federation of European Stock Exchanges. «European markets, particularly the emerging ones, have to respond much faster to the requirements of foreign investors and offer their customers a steadily lower cost of access to them,» he said. Iakovos Georganas, president of Hellenic Exchanges, the Athens bourse’s parent company, said international partnerships were a must, noting that more than 50 percent of the shares traded on the Athens Exchange are owned by foreign investors, who account for about 70 percent of turnover. He said today’s large institutional investors differ from the private investors of the past in that they are less «permanent,» being readier to move on if they find a more convenient platform.
