Transcript

We were one of the first exchanges in the world where prices started to rise and they rose quite considerably during the last year so if we look at share prices at the end of 2009 they are almost as high as they were at the end of 2007.

The financial world learned in the recent crisis the dangers that are embedded in the trading and securities derivatives which are implemented not in an exchange but rather in dark pool or over the counter trading systems. Trading in Israel is very transparent. The price discovery is very transparent, and therefore we didn’t suffer from quite a lot of problems that manifested themselves in other exchanges.

In the last generation the Israeli economy is driven by the high-tech sector and that is going to be in the next years. At the beginning of 2009, considerable gas deposits were found off the Israeli coast and it may change, in a very large measure, the structure of the Israeli economy.
We are going to be independent of energy imports and that is a big plus for the economy and it will affect us in the coming years.
 
You have a stable economic climate to do business in Israel. Still the Israeli economy is very dynamic and fast growing, with a lot of opportunities, so the combination of a stable society and stable economy, with good business opportunities is quite rare and you can’t find it, not in the developed economies and not in the emerging economies.