Considering that Romania’s economically active population is around 10 million, less than 1% of Romanians have a trading account on the Bucharest stock exchange. In Poland over 1.5 million people have stock exchange accounts, i.e. 4% of the population.
“The stock exchange is caught in a vicious cycle: investors don’t come to the stock exchange and don’t trade because there are no new companies, and in turn companies don’t want to get listed because they are afraid they won’t get a good price for the shares they sell because there are no investors. The state’s privatizations could break this vicious cycle and bring new investors to the stock exchange,” said Lucian Isac, general manager of Estinvest, a brokerage.
(English version by Daniela Stoican)