Page 43 - IRANRptSep20
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Capital generation
The TSE has benefitted from growing interest in its potential for capital generation with other parts of Iran’s economy—including property, gold, cars and forex—laid low by US sanctions and impacts of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
The appetite of investors has partly been whetted by government moves to sell off assets to raise revenues to fight the health and economic emergency. Lately, trading permission for ”Justice Shares” held by low-income deciles to be listed on the TSE has added to the extraordinary growth.
In the past three months, moreover, brokerage firms in Iran have issued 1.6mn new trading codes for individual investors, including foreign firms that are permitted to trade.
Iran - Financial market as of Jan 2020 as of Jun 2019 as of Jun 2018 as of Dec 2017
Equity market index: Tehran Stock Exchange (TEDPIX)
427,139 248,533 111,528.2 95,561.5
Market capitalisation: % of GDP
23.9% (2017) 23.9% (2017) 25.7% (2016) 22.7% (2015)
Market cap: Tehran Stock Exchange 327.20 (Dec 224.85 100.66 105.98 (TSE) (USD bn) 2019)
PE ratio: TSE 8.60 8.41 6.76 7.01 Source: CEIC
8.4 Fixed income
8.4.1 Fixed income - bond news
Iran’s plan to offer oil backed bonds held up
Iranian Finance and Economic Affairs Minister Farhad Dejpasand has said that the plan to offer oil via oil-backed bonds on the Iran Energy Exchange (Irenex) has been temporarily halted, Tasnim news agency reported.
Dejpasand was quoted as saying on a live TV programme that the Economy Council had approved the plan, but that it would not be implemented as yet due to some reasons that posed obstacles. There have been reports of substantial opposition to the plan in the Iranian parliament, with some lawmakers doubting that oil bonds would prove viable. Those backing the plan see it as a way for Iran to up its oil revenues at a time when it is struggling to sell crude on export markets due to the US effort to use sanctions to drive its oil consignments as low as possible.
The Irenex was due to offer crude oil via standard parallel Islamic “salaf” bonds on August 16.
The National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) had planned to offer 20 trillion rials (around $476.1mn at the official rate) of heavy crude oil to back the bonds, the Tehran Times reported.
43 IRAN Country Report September 2020 www.intellinews.com
