Ahmed El-Sheikh, Chairperson of the Egyptian Exchange (EGX), and Ashraf Salman, President of the Egyptian Securities Federation (ESF), inaugurated EGX's trading session on 2 October as part of the World Investor Week of 2023. They were joined by Mohamed Abdel Aziz, Assistant Chairperson of the Financial Regulatory Authority (FRA), Mohamed Ayyad, Director of the FRA's Media Center, and officials from the Egyptian Society of Technical Analysts (ESTA) and the Egyptian Investment Management Association. El-Sheikh said that EGX is committed to participating in the World Investor Week activities, which aim to promote financial literacy and awareness among the public. He added that enhancing the understanding of financial concepts will benefit EGX in the long term, as it will attract more investors and encourage more companies to list on EGX. El-Sheikh also said that EGX's strategy will continue to support financial education through various programs and events, such as university lectures, one-day visits, educational visits to the historic EGX building downtown, the Stock Exchange Ambassadors Initiative, and school student programs. Salman praised the efforts of EGX in spreading financial culture and educating the public about the fundamentals of financial markets and investment. He also emphasized that financial technology is the key to developing financial markets. Salman explained that the Federation will play a major role in training and disseminating financial culture, as well as introducing different financial instruments to new segments of society. He also said that the Federation will coordinate with FRA and EGX to license workers in the securities fields through ESF's various committees. Mohamed Al-Sayyad, Vice Chairperson of FRA, said that the Authority participated in the celebration of the World Investor Week, as it believes in the importance of financial culture. Nandini Sukumar, chief executive officer of the World Federation of Exchanges (WFE), said that stock exchanges and regulators recognize that developing financial education and culture globally is a top priority for achieving growth and expansion. She added that education is essential for both emerging and developed markets. The celebration of World Investor Week also honored a new batch of graduates of the "Egyptian Stock Exchange Ambassadors" program, who contributed to spreading financial culture throughout 2023. The graduates were students from the British University and the LSE College of the University of London, the Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport, and the Egyptian-Japanese University. The Stock Exchange Ambassadors Initiative is the first programme to equip trainers for specialized financial culture studies. It was supervised and organized by EGX and had the primary aim of empowering qualified students to participate in training activities that regularly take place by EGX in schools and universities to explain the basics and principles of investment in securities. It is worth mentioning that the "Ring the Bell for Financial Education" campaign, organized by the World Federation of Exchanges for the fifth year in a row, during World Investor Week from 2 to 8 October 2023, in cooperation with the International Organization of Securities Commissions, aims to raise the level of awareness about the importance of educating and protecting investors.
