The Ljubljana Stock Exchange (LJSE) was established on 26 December 1989, after two new federal laws enabled such a move in the centrally-planned economy in the former Yugoslavia. The Ljubljana stock market was the first stock exchange to be set up in any socialist country, a move that came only a day before Belgrade got its own stock exchange and six months before the stock markets were set up in Hungary and China.
"In the near future we will have to find our own place in the common European market, which is bound to become uniform by the beginning of 2007 as a result of the implementation of directives regarding capital markets," said Andrej Sketa, a member of the LJSE board of managers.
"In its early stage, the LJSE was a key player in the process of privatisation, which represented a great opportunity for the capital market," Sketa stressed. It was on 8 January 1996 that the first share of a privatised company was listed on the stock exchange. The historical share was that of the food-processing company Kolinska.
Sketa believes that over the past years the LJSE has enhanced, within the range of its powers, the transparency and efficiency of the trading on the official market. The LJSE has made efforts for the Slovenian capital market to meet the highest international standards, he stressed.
But "if we look back, we can see that the macroeconomic environment did not always encourage the development of the Slovenian capital market," Sketa was critical of the government, referring to the silent approval of the securities grey market and the inappropriate attitude towards foreign investors.
As the largest owner and manager on the domestic capital market, the state and its institutions could help further improve "the existing best practices" by providing a good example in respecting the rights of small shareholders by large shareholders. Observing the rules of the official market in transactions with securities, is another thing the state could do, Sketa said.
The first trading meeting on the LJSE took place on 29 March 1990, with 14 stock brokers trading in 11 securities. The BIS electronic trading was introduced at the end of 1993, yet trading meetings, which were held twice a week, were nevertheless kept. The last one took place in December 1995.
Some of the other milestones in the development of the LJSE - which in fact marked 80 years in August since the first stock market was established in Ljubljana - were a new act on the securities market in March 1994; full membership of the International Federation of Stock Exchanges in October 1997; and membership of in the Federation of European Stock Exchanges in June 2004.
In end November, the volume of trading on all segments of the Ljubljana stock market amounted to SIT 33.1bn (EUR 138m). While market capitalisation reached SIT 2983bn (EUR 12.4bn), the market capitalisation of all shares, investment funds excluded, represented 29.8 percent of Slovenia's 2003 GDP.
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