TEHRAN, Iran, Nov. 30
Trend:
The management of Iran's Tehran Stock Exchange needs to be reviewed and structural reforms must be made in the capital market, the head of the Program and Budget Commission of Iranian Parliament Hamidreza Haji Babaei said, Trend reports citing Mehr News Agency.
"In order to organize the stock exchange in the first place, there must be transparency in how to manage the capital market," Babaei said.
"The capital market influencers and major stockholders must be identified," he said. "It should also be determined which companies the brokers operating on the stock exchange belong to, and the extent of the influence of these brokers and major stock exchange companies, especially companies affiliated with banks, should be determined."
He asked the relevant officials, especially the Minister of Economy and Finance, to answer whether they were aware of the crises in the capital market.
"If they were aware, they should clearly explain why they have not prevented the crisis," he said.
He went on to say that the capital market needs to be fully reviewed and monitored through regulatory systems.
The Tehran Stock Exchange index was around 500,000 units as late as in March but aggressively climbed to more than two million points by early August without any economic fundamentals backing its rise. While the country is struggling with stagflation quadrupling the total index means quadrupling the value of mostly government-controlled companies' shares.
Local experts and the media regarded such developments as surprising and suspicious.
Despite warnings of bubbles in the TSE by experts, the Iranian government has been campaigning extensively in recent months to attract the public to the stock market.