His Majesty King Abdullah II opened in Amman on Wednesday, the 29th Annual Conference of the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO).



The conference, which is held for the first time in a Middle Eastern country is attended by more than 500 high-ranking officials from securities regulatory institutions and stock exchanges, chairmen and executive directors of international financial institutions and investment banking professionals from 100 countries.



The Executive Chairman of the Jordan Securities Commission (JSC), Dr. Bassam Saket said " As His Majesty King Abdullah II comes back from chairing a successful World Economic Forum at the Dead Sea, We are proud to say that the world converged in Jordan.


"Bringing regulators and other market participants together at these annual conferences is especially important to today's challenging markets, such challenge warrant that all of us think... beyond our local jurisdictions... tremors in major markets have spillover effects on each other and on smaller markets," stated Dr. Saket.



He said that the JSC is opened to foreign investors whose ownership is 40 percent of market capitalization. Market capitalization also grew from 5.8 billion US Dollars 1n 1999 to 11.5 billion today, thus representing 116% of GDP.



Dr. Saket added that the JSC had signed memorandums of understanding with Malaysia, Egypt, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman and is expected to sign similar MOU's with Singapore, Palestine and Poland.



Chairman of the IOSCO Executive Committee, Fernando Teixeira Dos Santos on his part said that recent figures show that financial markets began to restore investors' confidence and affirm the essential trilogy for sound and experienced markets: integrity, fairness and transparency. "Through its key efforts and initiatives, the IOSCO is demonstrating its key role as primary global forum of international cooperation for securities regulators and as the standard setter for the securities sector," he added.



Santos said that in a globalize world, the IOSCO is more than ever relevant and is moving ahead with critical projects designed to systematically upgrade, the implementation level of its high-level regulatory standards in all its members' jurisdiction.