Today, May 22, ANDRES SUTT, Deputy Governor of Eesti Pank participated in a Tallinn Stock Exchange conference "NASDAQ OMX - new opportunities for public and private sector" with a presentation "Capital market integration - where is the limit?".

At the conference Andres Sutt spoke about the era of globalisation and integration which in Europe gathered speed in parallel to the introduction of the euro. "The euro has joined together European economies and the world of securities trading is becoming global," said Sutt, thereby referring to large international enterprises which also include the Tallinn Stock Exchange. "Integration of securities markets widens the range of products and facilitates cross-border trading, while at the same time reducing costs and contributing to a more liquid market. This in turn increases economic growth," explained Andres Sutt.

Nevertheless, European securities market infrastructures are considered to be more fragmented and less effective than in the United States. "In addition to existing barriers to complete efficiency the recent global financial turmoil highlighted another bottleneck in the financial market integration - the absence of financial stability framework. It means that there are inconsistencies between integrated markets and national stability arrangements. In order to avoid these inconsistencies, closer cross-border cooperation and greater cooperation between authorities is essential to establish international financial stability arrangements," said the Deputy Governor.

Looking ahead, Andres Sutt spoke about further consolidation at the international level which will result in 3-5 major marketplaces in the global market in 5-10 years perspective. "The Baltic markets, including Estonia will benefit in the long run from the NASDAQ OMX Group in a better access to various global securities markets. In order to integrate into the single Nordic capital market and thereafter also into the global market, the development of the Baltic-wide capital market and its infrastructures, both their identity and also technologically, is of essential importance. This will help to guarantee the competitiveness of the Estonian securities market: although a part of a larger group, it will remain attractive," said Andres Sutt.

The presentation of Andres Sutt will be available on the web site of Eesti Pank at
http://www.eestipank.info/pub/en/dokumendid/publikatsioonid/seeriad/koned/