The annual conference of the International Forum for Investor Education (IFIE) which was held in Washington DC - approved the establishment of a specialized committee that is concerned with investors’ education and raising their awareness in the MENA Region. In recognition of the CMA’s role, Dr. Ahmed Saad Abdel Latif, Chairman of the CMA was elected to be the chairman of the Committee for the next two years and the CMA was chosen to be the secretariat of the Committee.

The Committee aims at providing information for Member States regarding the best ways to educate investors and raise their awareness in the Stock Market. In addition to this, the committee stresses the importance of exchanging expertise and international experience in this field. The committee is to set the international standards for Member States to develop and design Raising Investors’ Awareness Program.

Dr. Ahmed Saad delivered a speech as being the keynote speaker at the annual conference. He shed light on the negative impact of the Global Financial Crisis on the Global Capital Markets in general and the Arab Capital Markets, in particular. He referred to the regulatory actions taken by many countries to reduce this negative impact.

In his speech, Dr. Ahmed Saad showed different categories of investors in the Arab Markets and the challenges faced by regulators in these markets regarding educating investors and raising their awareness as well as the benefit that these markets gain from educating investors and raising their awareness .

Mr. / Hesham Ibrahim , CMA chief of staff , participated in a panel discussion on the effective programs to educate investors and the experience of the countries in this field . Representatives of Capital Markets Authorities from Malaysia, Brazil, Korea, and Canada participated in the discussion. A lecture on Raising Investors’ Awareness Program in the Egyptian Stock Market and the CMA’s work plans and programs for the year 2009 in the context of the CMA’s strategic plan 2008-2012 was delivered.

The lecture identified the reasons for the need to educate Egyptian investors and raising their awareness. It also threw light upon the categories of investors in the Egyptian Market and the role of the CMA as a being a regulator on the Egyptian Capital Market as well as the CMA’s work plans and programs regarding this issue and what has been implemented during the past year.

A great importance was given to the Beta version of the educational site which was launched by the CMA recently www.iInvest.org.eg and the support and cooperation offered by the largest U.S. financial institutions that are specialized in this field , as well as to the CMA’s work programs to convert the website into a regional website covering all markets of the Member States in the committee for investor education in the Middle East and North Africa, chaired by the CMA . The participants praised the contents of the website.

To review the presentation prepared by Dr. Ahmed Saad, the keynote speaker at the conference (Click Here)

To review the presentation prepared by Mr. / Hisham Ibrahim (Click Here)

To review the agenda of the Conference (Click Here)

For the official website of the International Forum for Investor Education (IFIE) - (Click Here)