Warsaw Agenda 2010 calls for privatization of WSE

The document entitled "Agenda Warsaw City 2010" was released yesterday and aims at forming the strongest capital market in Central and Eastern Europe. One of its primary goals is the privatization of the Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE). "The decision to privatize the stock exchange through its sale on the WSE itself has to be made quickly, irrespective of the talks concerning a merger with another European market. "This is the reason why we would like to cooperate with market institutions as well as the State Treasury to complete the preparation for the privatization of the WSE by the end of next year," said Igor Chalupec, Deputy Finance Minister. The Ministry proposes to float WSE shares on the Warsaw Stock Exchange, which does not prevent a potential strategic alliance with another stock exchange. Chalupec also announced that the Ministry will try to increase the capital traded on capital markets, which is the WSE, CeTO over-the-counter market, and alternate selling platforms from the current 21% to 40% of GDP in 2010. (Puls Biznesu, p. 5; Parkiet, p. 1) A.K.