TEHRAN- The managing director of Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE) outlined the exchange’s major approaches and policies in a press conference on Wednesday.

Mohammad Goudarzi also expounded upon the measures taken and underway by the TSE during the press conference.

He mentioned focusing on two areas of financing and digitalization of processes as two important programs of this exchange and stated: “To achieve our desired goals, we focused on two areas of financing and digitalization of Tehran Stock Exchange.”

“Digitalization of the TSE and designing systems for this objective in a way that we can meet the needs of market is one of our main targets”, the official reiterated.

“Another measure we are planning to take in line with financing is to change the financing secretariates in the provincial halls to some financing centers, in a way that some spaces will be allocated to them so that the other financing centers can come and operate and help the financing in that province”, Goudarzi further stated.

Elsewhere in his remarks, the TSE managing director said that the exchange plans to strengthen the role of financial instruments, such as futures, in the current Iranian calendar year (ends in late March).

“Although the directors tried to set up the futures contract market in the past few years, but since some platforms have not yet been able to perform the necessary confirmations for settlement and clearing, we are facing problems. Therefore, we should try to increase the number of indices”, he explained.

“We are not satisfied with the volume of transactions in this market, but it seems that with the preparation of the IT sector, we will witness the prosperity of this market and the increase in the number of indices”, the official added.

Then, Goudarzi emphasized the importance and role of indirect investment, and said, “Looking at the stock exchange transactions, we can say that 60 million shareholders are not active, so we must help the market participants to invest indirectly in the capital market.”

Stating that investing in the stock market is indirect all over the world, he said: “With the development of stock funds, condition for indirect investing has been provided in a good way.”

Goudarzi also mentioned the knowledge-based companies and said, “The entry of knowledge-based companies is an intrinsic approach for the country's economy and will lead the flow of capital towards the companies, and with the help of the Securities and Exchange Organization (SEO), we will see these companies enter the stock market for the first time.”

Currently, 10 companies out of 50 are knowledge-based companies that will enter the stock market as soon as they are accepted, the official added.

He further announced that 386 companies are currently active in Tehran Stock Exchange, of them 176 companies are in the secondary market and the rest in the primary market.

TSE is one of the four Iranian stock exchanges, and the most important one. The other three ones are Iran Mercantile Exchange (IME), Iran Energy Exchange (IRENEX), and Iran’s over-the-counter (OTC) market, known as Iran Fara Bourse (IFB).