The Egyptian Exchange (EGX) has announced the 16th annual general meeting and flagship conference of the African Securities Exchanges Association (ASEA). This is the top conference for Africa’s capital markets. It will be Cairo on 2-4 December 2012 at The Four Seasons Nile Plaza hotel. The focus of the Annual Conference of this year is on “Unleashing Africa’s investment potential – what could be done by African capital markets?” The conference has launched a website (www.aseaegypt2012.org) which contains details of the agenda and participants. Look here for registration.

Conference topics include:
• How to draw investment flows to African capital markets
• Capital market reforms: regulation & investment and the need for more cross-border coordination between regulators
• Maximizing the benefit of Africa’s oil & gas – what should exchanges do?
• Upcoming IPOs, challenges facing private equity and venture capital firms in Africa
• What are the challenges facing Africa’s SME exchanges in supporting Africa’s entrepreneurs?
• The technology equation – managing high IT costs to meet rising demand for speed and efficiency and enable connectivity between markets?
• Role and determinants of financial development.

The Annual General Meeting of ASEA is held every year and participation is by invitation only. It is the occasion for the heads of exchanges in Africa, to identify the initiatives that need to be implemented to achieve the objectives of the Association and help member exchanges attain a greater role in the competitive global market environment. Casablanca Stock Exchange hosted it last year in December 2011 in Marrakesh, Morocco. and there were over 300 delegates from more than 22 countries.

The 2012 conference is held under the auspices of Egyptian Prime Minister HE Dr Hesham Kandel. Dr. Mohamed Omran, Chairman of the EGX, says: “This is the 2nd time EGX welcomes its fellow members of ASEA to Egypt & hosts the annual meeting. We are looking forward to meeting old friends and colleagues in this conference to discuss means of developing the African markets. Hoping the outcome of the conference would be fruitful to all parties.”

Sponsors include Millennium IT, Arab African International Bank, Orascom, JP Morgan, NASDAQ OMX, CNBC, Egypt Daily News and Bloomberg.