Senior officials from banking, insurance and stock market sectors are meeting at the sixth International Exhibition of Exchange, Banking, Insurance and Privatization.
Along with the 11th Exhibition of Investment Opportunities, the four-day event ‘Kish Invex 2019 opened Monday at the Kish International Exhibition Center in Kish Island off the Persian Gulf.
Economic and political delegations from 15 countries are attending. The chief of Central Insurance company of Iran Gholmreza Solemani, head of Tehran Stock Exchange Ali Sahraee, the TSE deputy for supervision affairs, Hassan Amiri and the vice president of Iran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture, Hossein Selahvarzi were among the keynote speakers.
Pointing to the impressive improvement in the stock market transparency and information sharing indictors, Amiri defended the four-year performance of the TSE supervision wing.
According to Amiri, the index for ‘timely publication of information’ improved from 43% to 91% during the past four year. Likewise, the indicator for ‘blocking information’ improved substantially from 34% to 2% and the time-lag between sharing information was reduced to 0.8 day from the previously 13 days. ”
The capital market funded diverse economic sectors to the tune of 1,250 trillion rials in the last fiscal year. The amount was 810 trillion rials during seven months of this year, Amiri said, underscoring the role and significance of the capital market in funding various economic sectors.
The CEO of Kish Free Zone Gholamhossein Mozaffari commended the role of the Iranian financial market in driving forward economic sectors by helping businesses in difficult times.
Highlighting the performance of listed banks in the stock market, Mozaffari pointed to the 69% rise in the index of the banking industry in the capital market.
First Int’l Stock Market Coming
The CEO spoke about a plan to open the first international stock market in Kish before the current calendar year is out (in March 2020).
The international bourse is to be launched to facilitate the presence of domestic businesses on the international scene, forging ties between foreign and local investors and attracting foreign financial resources.
The new exchange will be based in Kish Island (a free trade zone) off the Persian Gulf and will be Iran’s fifth exchange after the Tehran Stock Exchange, Iran Fara Bourse (over-the-counter market), Energy Exchange and Iran Mercantile Exchange.
The CII chief Soleimani presented the conferees with a performance report on the growing insurance industry. He said the insurance firms have been successful in covering a wide range of risks in industries, transportation and banking.
“The insurance firms have been able to cover risks worth $400 billion rials,” he said.
Soleimani said insurers earned 450 trillion rials in premium last year and forecast that the figure would reach 600 trillion rials by the end of current fiscal year.
He recalled the low penetration rate of life insurance in Iran as one of the shortcoming of the domestic industry, saying currently 11 million Iranians have life insurance which is way lower than in the developed world.
According to the CII data, the share of life insurance from total premium income was 14.5% in the last fiscal year. The sector generated 66 trillion rials in premium for insurance companies.
The share of life insurance sectors should reach 60% to conform to global standards, according to the official.
Insurers paid 23.9 trillion rials ($211 million) in life insurance claims last year -- 56.3% higher than what was paid the previous year. The total number of claims in the category was 519,000 in the 12 months, down 30% year-on-year. The payout ratio of the category was 53.1%, according to CII records.
Kish Invex offers the opportunity to utilize and develop investment schemes that can contribute to economic growth and development.
The presence of senior administrators from different organizations and financial markets to help provide solutions to potential problems has added to the role and significance of Kish Invex 2019.
The four-day event will conclude on Nov. 21.
