The most important achievement of 2024 is the number of 226,000 accounts opened on the stock exchange and a growth rate of approximately 10,000 - 15,000 accounts per quarter, said the president of the Bucharest Stock Exchange, Radu Hanga, on Tuesday, at the 12th edition of the BVB Awards 2025 - the annual awards ceremony for the previous year's capital market performances.

'At the 12th edition of the BVB Awards, we try to bring on stage the players from our ecosystem who have made significant contributions to the development of what the Bucharest Stock Exchange is today. For me, the most important achievement of 2024 is the number of 226,000 investors, the number of 226,000 accounts opened on the stock exchange. Ultimately, if we look at the Bucharest Stock Exchange as a stage on which you, companies, those of you who are listed companies, step up, beyond having access to capital, to make yourselves visible, the value of the stage you're looking at is given by the scope of the audience. The most important thing we can do for you is to bring as many investors as possible to the stock exchange to give you the greatest visibility. I believe that by far our main objective is to increase the number of investors on the stock exchange in order to increase the scope of the exchange and the support we give to listed companies. So, 226,000 accounts opened and a growth rate of approximately 10,000 - 15,000 per quarter. We want to maintain this pace,' said Radu Hanga.

According to him, the market capitalisation of the Stock Exchange reached 363 billion lei at the end of last year, of which 260 billion lei represents the capitalisation of local companies. Last year, 5 companies were listed, and 42 bond issuances were made. State-owned companies listed on the exchange represent over 40% of the market capitalisation. He mentioned that the BET index registered an increase of 8.8%, while BET-TR rose 16.1%.

'So, to summarise, we had a good year. The increase in the number of investors, the growth in the number of transactions, a record amount financed through the stock exchange by the Ministry of Finance. We have a new corporate governance code for the Bucharest Stock Exchange, in which we tried to capture the latest global trends in terms of best practices in the field, without making life more complicated for listed companies, for you. If I were to say it simply: I would like all these things in the corporate governance code to be viewed through the lens of common sense. That is, we should look at everything we do from the perspective that we are listed companies, we have thousands, tens of thousands of investors, and everything is about how we communicate as transparently as possible with them because the result will be seen in the evaluation of our companies,' added the president of BVB.

He mentioned that if we look back 30 years, the Exchange started in 1995 with 9 listed companies, and now there are 400 companies.

On the other hand, Radu Hanga also mentioned a shortcoming, namely the long implementation time of the Central Counterparty project. AGERPRES (RO - writing by: George Banciulea; EN - writing by: Adina Panaitescu)