Bulgaria ranked third in the world ranking of securities’ market growth for the past five years, a research by Bloomberg and Standard & Poor’s showed, as quoted by vietnamnet.vn on October 17.

The report was based on figures from the securities’ market for the period from October 9 2002 to October 9 2007 and the securities’ growth rate over the past five years.

With an annual average growth of 88 per cent Peru’s securities market took the lead, followed by Ukraine with 84 per cent and Bulgaria with 77 per cent, vietnamnet.vn said.

The growth registered on the Bulgarian Stock Exchange – Sofia (BSE) since the beginning of 2007 was more than 240 per cent. As The Sofia Echo reported on October 12, the BSE blue-chip index known as the SOFIX topped 1900 points in the first days of October 2007 after five months of persistent gains, thus marking a growth of 93 per cent on an annual basis.

The upward trend of the Bulgarian securities’ market was in 2007 was caused by Bulgaria’s European Union accession, rising exports and growing demand for most industries, Tsvetoslav Tsachev, chief analyst with ELANA Trading investment intermediary said in an article for The Sofia Echo.

Financial stability and the credit boom were other factors favouring economic growth, and more importantly, the development of capital markets. Bulgarian stocks were unaffected by the mortgage crisis and the worldwide credit crunch earlier this summer. Foreign investors were reluctant to sell their holdings in Bulgarian stocks lately, despite the new approach to risks of investments and the growing prospects of a global economic slowdown.