The Greek stock market was set to reopen yesterday or today after a month-long shutdown but with restrictions on trading by local investors at the request of the European Central Bank (ECB), the Greek securities regulator chairman told reporters on Tuesday.
The Athens Stock Exchange has been shut since June 29, after the government closed its banks and imposed capital controls to prevent them from collapsing in the face of mass withdrawals.
Greece sent a first proposal to the ECB last week to reopen the stock market as soon as possible because it risked its place in global securities indices if it remained closed for too long.
However, the process was delayed because the ECB wanted assurances that Greek investors would not pull money out of banks to convert it into shares or bonds, putting a further strain on the country’s struggling lenders which depend on the ECB’s emergency funding to remain afloat.
On Tuesday, Greece gained the ECB’s approval to reopen its stock market with no restrictions for foreign investors, but with limitations for local ones.
A ministerial decree on the bourse’s operations is expected, opening the way for trading.
Greek regulators on Monday offered the ECB two plans for the re-opening: One allowing unrestricted trading, the same as proposed last week, and a second that imposed restrictions on trading by Greek investors to prevent capital fleeing banks, sources said.
Botopoulos said the ECB approved the second plan.
“What we have won in the negotiations is that the restrictions will last for a limited period of time,” he said.
A European official said the process for the reopening of the market was delayed due to fears that it could result in a crash, as well as continued uncertainty about Greece’s political future and that of its banks.
A senior official at the regulator said local investors would be allowed to buy shares by using existing cash, such as that stored at home for security in the face of the crisis or money transfers from abroad and not by withdrawing money from their Greek bank accounts.
Some market participants had warned that unlimited trading for domestic investors would have posed a serious risk for lenders.
“The problem is that if the trading starts without restrictions, then many Greeks could withdraw their deposits and turn them into shares or bonds,” Athens-based Beta Securities chief trader Takis Zamanis told reporters.
The European Securities and Markets Authority said a ban on short-selling Greek shares would remain in place.
The ban, that also affects electronic trading of Greek government bonds, is set to stay in effect until Monday next week.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”