News
FTSE, QFMA, and SILATECH seek to attract first-ever global investors with launch of Index project to support youth-led small business in the Arab World
London, Qatar, 2 June 2008 - Silatech, a region-wide innovative youth investment initiative of Her Highness Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser Al Missned of Qatar, FTSE Group, the award-winning global index provider, and the Qatar Financial Markets Authority (QFMA) have announced a strategic alliance to launch a new index project across the Arab World. The initiative is aimed at promoting the creation of small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) markets and indices across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region in order to facilitate their growth and development and thereby increase youth employment opportunities. QFMA is already engaged in the creation of a junior market.
Silatech is focused on connecting young people across the Arab World to employment and promoting creative ways to provide business development services, unlocking capital and growing small and medium-sized enterprises that spur employment. The initiative will encourage and support individual Exchanges in the MENA region in establishing SME markets for young, growing companies. FTSE will create a complimentary index series covering all of the participating SME markets in the MENA region. Underpinning the initiative is a strategy of inclusivity – all markets across the region, whether established or embryonic – will be encouraged to participate.
“This initiative is about energizing small and medium-sized enterprises, which are critical to the creation of youth employment opportunities, our main goal at Silatech. The partnership with FTSE gives Silatech the added advantage of building on FTSE’s extensive international experience”, said Rick Little, Silatech’s Chief Executive.
Mr. Nasser Ahmed Al-Shaibi, Acting CEO and Deputy CEO at QFMA said, "The creation of an alternative market initiative is very much in line with QFMA strategy in helping enrich the listing and enlarge the market reach for companies, most importantly for those that are recently established or are not yet sizable enough to qualify for listing in the senior board."
Imogen Dillon-Hatcher, Managing Director of Europe, Middle-East & Africa from FTSE Group said, “FTSE is honoured to be working in a strategic partnership with Her Highness and Silatech to bring our international indexing expertise to this exciting initiative. We enjoy a track record of responsible corporate citizenship through our FTSE 4 Good index series – so we feel there is an ideal cultural fit between our organisations. Around the world, stock exchanges and governments are establishing specific market structures to reflect the particular requirements of SMEs. They have been successful in London with AIM, Nilex in Cairo, and the Shenzhen SME Market in China. We hope to mirror that success with Silatech’s expertise through expansion of indexes across the Arab World.”
About FTSE Group
FTSE Group is a world-leader in the creation and management of indexes. With offices in Beijing, London, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, Madrid, Paris, New York, San Francisco, Boston, Shanghai and Tokyo, FTSE Group services clients in 77 countries worldwide. It calculates and manages the FTSE Global Equity Index Series, which includes world-recognized indexes ranging from the FTSE All-World Index, the FTSE4Good series and the FTSEurofirst Index series, as well as domestic indexes such as the prestigious FTSE 100. The company has collaborative arrangements with the Athens, AMEX, Cyprus, Euronext, Johannesburg London, Madrid, NASDAQ and Taiwan exchanges, as well as Nomura Securities and Xinhua Finance of China. FTSE also has a collaborative agreement with Dow Jones Indexes to develop a single sector classification system for global investors.
FTSE indexes are used extensively by investors world-wide for investment analysis, performance measurement, asset allocation, portfolio hedging and for creating a wide range of index tracking funds. Independent committees of senior fund managers, derivatives experts, actuaries and other experienced practitioners review all changes to the indexes to ensure that they are made objectively and without bias. Real-time FTSE indexes are calculated on systems managed by Reuters. Prices and FX rates used are supplied by Reuters.
About Silatech
Established in 2007, Silatech is an innovative initiative that aims to improve the social and economic status of young people through the creation of progressive, entrepreneurial market, employment and business opportunities globally and in the Arab world.
The "Silatech" initiative was initiated and launched by Her Highness Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser Al Missned at the Annual Forum for the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations held in Madrid on January 15-16, 2008. It stems from her Her Highness’ drive and determination to address the critical and growing need to create new jobs and opportunities for young people globally, starting in the Middle East and North Africa. It is a pragmatic initiative which aims to offset the lack of opportunity and economic marginalisation of many young people throughout the Arab world by enabling systemic changes, in policy and mindset, at regional and global levels.
Silatech’s objectives include promoting market based job training; enabling state-of-the-art contact and counseling centres; experimenting with cutting edge technologies to connect young people with each other and potential employers; providing access to business development services and capital for aspiring young entrepreneurs; and breaking down cultural barriers to risk taking and entrepreneurship.
Silatech has established a network of stakeholder partners and support from other leaders and organizations regionally and internationally, including Cisco, the International Labor Organization, and the World Bank Global Partnership for Youth Investment, among others.
For more information, please contact:
Sabrina Bhangoo/ Mittal Dave,
FTSE Group
Tel: +020 7866 1821
Email: media@ftse.com
Silatech
P.O. Box 34111
Doha, Qatar
Tel : +974 (499) 4800
Fax : +974 (472) 7651
Info@Silatech.com
