Valentin Ionescu, general manager of the Bucharest Stock Exchange, took part in the forum "The Sound of Money 2011", organized by Profit.bg and was kind to share his impressions:

Mr. Ionescu: What conclusions can be made from the participation of representatives of four regional stock exchanges in the Forum "The Sound of Money 2011"?

First of all I would like to congratulate you on the organization of the forum and to thank you for the invitation.

We exchanged some ideas with my colleagues from the Bulgarian Stock Exchange, as well as with my colleagues from the Warsaw Stock Exchange and the Athens Stock Exchange.

It is always good to communicate because at the end of this conference we ended up with a common idea to create an index between Bulgaria and Romania. In my opinion this is very good because the foreign investors are looking at Bulgaria and Romania in the same way. So if they want to invest in the region they would like to invest in Romanian and Bulgarian companies. In this situation we can create something common. A common index could be the first step.

I see a lot of interest here. The people are following not only the Sofia exchange but also the region I had a good question from the audience about what we are doing to promote Romania and the capital market in Bulgaria.

Frankly speaking right now we are not doing much but I plan to come back in Bulgaria in a road show to see the pension funds, the companies, the intermediaries and to collaborate with the Bulgarian capital market institutions.

Do you think that more events like this one should be organized in the region?

Yes, this is very important. We are trying to do the same in Romania. We are trying to be aggressive but in the positive way. I am considering a common event in Bucharest to be held in September or October and I would like to invite my colleagues from Bulgaria as well, because we have to communicate much more aggressively than before. Now is the right moment to be create a common platform, common instruments, a common index in order to educate people in both countries.

It emerged at the panel discussion that the Bucharest Stock Exchange would place a bid for the Bulgarian Stock Exchange, if that is possible.

Yes, indeed. We are looking in the region and we can do in the region what the Vienna Stock Exchange did in Central Europe. They are creating a common platform now, which is very good for the intermediaries in the countries involved, because they can buy in Ljubljana, Prague, Budapest and Vienna even though they are members in just one country. So its cross-membership, cross-listing, the liquidity and the accessibility are there, and of course the costs are very low. We can do the same thing in Bulgaria.

I don't know if Romania will be the main leader but we can collaborate very easily with Bulgaria because we are both members of the European Union and we cane bring together other countries around us. We can start buy Bucharest and Sofia having a common understanding of a business, common instruments, maybe a common platform and after that bringing together other countries around us and creating a Southeastern Еuropean exchange.