Egypt’s Financial Regulatory Authority (FRA) has approved the trading fees reduction of transactions on the Egyptian Exchange (EGX) to encourage investment and create a competitive environment, the authority announced on Sunday.
The decision will now be sent to the cabinet for final approval, the FRA said in a statement.
This will reduce trading service fees to 0.005% from 0.00625%, clearing and settlement fees to 0.0100% from 0.0125% and stock market commissions to 0.0100% from 0.0120%.
Additionally, expenses of the Investor Protection Fund by 50% to 0.005% from 0.010%.
Ahead of the decision the FRA held several meetings with market participants to discuss proposals to reduce transaction fees on the EGX in a bid to encourage investment and create a competitive environment.
The EGX indices in the past two weeks were able to compensate part of the losses suffered in the previous sessions, with market capitalisation losing about EGP 42bn at the close of the week’s trading.
Since the beginning of the year, Egyptians represented 66.2% of the value traded in listed stocks after excluding deals, foreigners accounted for 24.7%, while Arabs captured 9.0%. Foreigners were net sellers by EGP 1.6632bn, and Arabs were net sellers by EGP 570.1m, after excluding deals in listed stocks from the start of this year.
