OREANDA-NEWS. In the first three quarters of 2007, the total volume of exchange-based trading on all markets of the MICEX Group amounted to 69.07 trillion rubles (2.68 trillion US dollars), 1.93 times more than in the same period of last year, the MICEX press service reported. The average daily volume of exchange-based transactions on the MICEX Group's markets grew to 375.4 billion rubles (about 14.6 billion dollars). At present, by the total trade volume the MICEX is the largest exchange in Russia, the CIS and Eastern Europe. This year the MICEX Stock Exchange has joined the list of the world's 20 largest stock exchanges by the volume of trading on the share market. This makes it the main floor where liquidity for Russian assets forms.

In January-September 2007, the volume of transactions in stocks on the MICEX Stock Exchange amounted to 21.26 trillion rubles (823.2 billion dollars), 2.2 times more than in the same period of 2006. Best selling securities included shares in Gazprom (27.3% of the total turnover), RAO UES (24.8%), Sberbank (10.9%), Norilsk Nickel (9.4%), LUKoil (8.3%), Surgutneftegaz (5.0%), Rostelecom (4.8%), Rosneft (3.2%), Tatneft (1.1%) and Uralsvyazinform (1.0%). The volume of equity repos amounted to 10.2 trillion rubles (394.4 billion dollars), 4.9 times more than in the same period of 2006. Today 313 stocks of 201 issuers are traded on the MICEX Stock Exchange. On 9/30/2007 the capitalization of the market for stocks traded on the MICEX SE amounted to 25.72 trillion rubles (1.03 trillion dollars), 1.3 times more than in 2006.

This year, the government securities market and the money market have demonstrated the fastest growth of exchange-based turnover. The total volume of transactions concluded in these markets in January-September 2007 has grown 4.6 times and amounted to 11.5 trillion rubles (450 billion dollars), including auctions and secondary trading in GKO/OFZ, OBR, repos and deposit operations of the Bank of Russia. The share of this segment in the total exchange-based turnover of the MICEX Group has amounted to 16.8% (last year: 9.4%). The growth of the volume of trading in government bonds came as a result of measures which the MICEX took to improve the liquidity of the market. One of those measures was changing the system of commission rates on the government securities market (from July 1 2007) to promote participants' activity. As a result, the costs of market participants connected with operations at auctions and secondary trading dropped more than 2 times. Repos show an especially impressive growth: their volume has amounted to 5.41 trillion rubles, having increased 4.3 times over the corresponding period of 2006. In the framework of its money and credit policy, the Bank of Russia placed its own bonds (OBR). The volume of OBR placement amounted to 477 billion rubles. The volume of deposit operations of the Bank of Russia grew 1.1 times over the corresponding period of 2006 and reached 394 billion rubles. In August, the Bank of Russia began to provide lombard credits, using the MICEX system.