Interfax
May 5

Uzbekistan's government has moved to outlaw trading in shares outside official exchanges and organized OTC markets. Unofficial share trading is thought to be three to five times higher than official trading.

The government has issued a resolution on the Further Development of the Secondary Market for Securities, which exempts the Taskhent Stock Exchange from VAT for a period of three years on the condition that the money it saves is used to develop stock market infrastructure. The government has instructed the exchange to implement, as first priority, an information system to provide potential investors with data on issuers, share prices, dividends and other information.

The Tashkent exchange is licensed for primary and secondary share trading, and the Elsis-Savdo electronic trading system is licensed for secondary trading.

The Tashkent exchange had turnover of 14.9 billion sum in 2002, 86% more than in 2001. Secondary share trading took 31% of the total, compared with 14.7% in 2001. Elsis-Savdo's turnover fell by nearly a quarter to 380 million sum.

The official exchange rate was 967.63 sum/$1 on April 30.

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