Published: July 16, 2010
Iraq needs funds to rebuild and frontier investors are looking for high-risk, high-return opportunities. They seem an ideal match, so why isn’t there more liquidity in the market? Mark Dunne reports.
The financial world has faced several challenges in recent years, but establishing a stock market in the aftermath of a war has to be one of the toughest. Sectarian violence, curfews and power shortages did not stop a group of brokers from resurrecting the Baghdad Stock Exchange, which closed during 2003’s US-led invasion. Yet as much as they achieved in enabling listed companies to trade again through the renamed Iraq Stock Exchange (ISX), they now face a bigger task: getting liquidity into the market.