Eurasian Development Bank to help modernize Kyrgyz Stock Exchange

09:29, 22 мая 2024, Bishkek - 24.kg news agency , Tatyana KUDRYAVTSEVA

The Eurasian Development Bank (EDB), the Financial Credit Fund under the Ministry of Finance of the Kyrgyz Republic (FCF), the Russian-Kyrgyz Development Fund (RKDF) and the Kyrgyz Stock Exchange (KSE) have signed a letter of intent to implement a technical assistance project aimed at modernizing the stock exchange in Kyrgyzstan. The press service of EDB reported.

The document was signed by Eldiyar Doolbekov, Chairman of the FCF; Denis Ilin, Senior Managing Director at the EDB; Oleg Kudyakov, Deputy Chairman of the Board at the RKDF; and Medetbek Nazaraliev, President of KSE.

The modernization project aims to enhance the capacity of the Kyrgyz Stock Exchange and, consequently, the nation’s financial instruments market. It will involve modernizing KSE’s IT infrastructure and trading system, thereby improving trading accessibility for international investors.

According to the document, the EDB plans to provide a grant to KSE to modernize its infrastructure, which has not been updated since 2001. The project will explore the establishment of new trading sections for currency pairs and derivatives, as well as the expansion of infrastructure to boost trading volumes and the number of market participants. The planned source of financing for the project is the EDB’s Technical Assistance Fund (TAF).

«This project will provide direct access to the stock exchange for financial institutions throughout Kyrgyzstan and integrate it with the trading platforms of EAEU countries, with the prospect of its development as one of the leaders of the exchange market ecosystem in Central Asia,» said Nikolai Podguzov.

This is not the EDB’s first project of this kind. In 2021–2022, the EDB TAF provided a grant to the Armenia Securities Exchange to modernize its processes and implement software for its new trading system. That project made the trading system accessible to end investors and ensured a 138 percent increase in the annual value of auctions for the placement and redemption of government securities and a 42 percent increase in the annual number of transactions in the same segment compared to 2019.