KASE gets membership of SAFE

Kazakhstan Stock Exchange (KASE) became the first Central Asian exchange to acquire the membership of the South Asian Federation of Exchanges (SAFE). With the addition of Kazakhstan, the number of countries having stock exchanges from their countries as the members of SAFE has increased to 11. This number includes eight South Asian countries and Bahrain, Mauritius and UAE.
According to the press release issued by the Lahore Stock Exchange, the decision to accord membership to KASE has been taken at the ongoing Executive Committee meeting of SAFE, which is taking place at Kathmandu, Nepal from Jul 6th to 8th. It may be mentioned that KASE is the largest of the stock exchanges in Central Asia, which was only founded during 1993. KASE serves as a universal financial market providing four kinds of markets; the foreign currency market, the government securities and bonds market, the market for shares and derivative market. Since the emergence as an independent state, Kazakhstan's economy and the stock market have shown a remarkable performance and the country is poised to grow at a fast pace during the years to come.
The addition of KASE to the Federation is considered quite important because it may open the door for the other Central Asian exchanges/capital market Institutions to join SAFE. During the last five years, SAFE outreach and activities have expanded manifold.
At the time of the establishment of the permanent secretariat at Islamabad, SAFE comprised of only 12 members, but owing to the remarkable work under the leadership of its current Secretary General, Aftab Ahmad Chaudhry, SAFE has expanded into a 35 member body included the stock, commodity and derivative exchanges, the depository and clearing institutions, other stock exchange federations, the regulatory agencies and the selected capital market related entities. SAFE is a co-operative platform set up by the bourses in South Asia to promote the development and harmonisation of the securities markets in the region.-PR