Bahrain Stock Exchange (BSE) has signed a consultancy agreement with Singapore Exchange Limited (SGX) as part of its efforts to boost its competitiveness in the region.

Under the agreement, SGX, through its wholly-owned subsidiary, will provide overall guidance on the management and operations of BSE through training and knowledge transfer.

This is to enhance the BSE's competitiveness in the region by increasing its operational efficiency, making it more capable of contributing to the economic development in the Kingdom.

Fouad Rashid, director of the BSE, and  Seck Wai Kwong, senior executive vice president/chief financial officer of SGX and chairman of SGX-International (SGX-I) signed the agreement in Manama in the presence of CBB governor and BSE chairman Rasheed Al Maraj and managing director of Monetary Authority of Singapore Heng Swee Keat.

Fouad pointed out that SGX was one of the most developed exchanges in Asia Pacific.

"We hope that SGX's extensive experience will enable us to increase our operational efficiency in a way that will support the BSE's capabilities to play a greater role in the development of the country, especially those related to implementing Bahrain's economic vision that was recently released."

"We aim to attract more listings and encourage financial institutions to provide investors with more exchange-traded products on our platform," he noted.

Wai Kwong said, "SGX looks forward to sharing its best practices and knowledge with BSE to further enhance their product and service offerings to market participants.

The agreement builds on the earlier MoU signed between SGX and BSE last month to explore areas of collaboration to benefit the financial services industries in Singapore and Bahrain.-TradeArabia News Service