The government will launch instruments to ensure access of SMES to the stock market – the Public.en

The prime minister announced on Tuesday the creation of two measures aimed at strengthening the conditions of access of small and medium-sized Portuguese companies to the capital market.

“We’re working to introduce” the short-term certificates, and the “business of promotion of the economy”, said António Costa, who was speaking at the opening of an event of Euronext Lisbon, in Alfeite.

The first are the instruments of short-term debt for SMES “that make them eligible for the investment funds harmonised and for pension funds”, explained the prime minister, in the event of the Portuguese stock market precisely on the theme of “Financing through the capital market”.

The second are companies that may invest in the capital of companies” of small dimension that, in isolation, would not have access to this type of funding, said Costa.

The prime minister assured that the Government has “the ambition to ensure” the development of the capital market and increase its weight in the financing of the Portuguese economy, which today is “residual”.

in Addition to creating mechanisms of indirect access of Portuguese SMES to financing in the stock market, António Costa also stressed the need for an “improvement of the regulatory environment, aiming at reducing the costs of access to the market” of these smaller companies.

“The costs of staying in the market”, either by the disclosure requirements of which are taxes, whether “by regulatory requirements many intense”, have their share of responsibility in the estrangement between the companies and the stock exchange, defended Pedro Siza Vieira, who participates in the working group Structure of the Mission to the Capitalization of Companies.

“We [in Portugal] the most demanding in the transposition of the community directives”, noted Siza Vieira, one of the authors of the report that was presented in the Summer to the Government and that suggested measures such as the creation of short-term securities.

The fact that the capital market to be “thinner” is also, therefore, a consequence of the “cultural context and regulatory” in Portugal, defended the charge. Thus, there is a “complete change in the legislative context”, as well as a change in the approach of the regulators” to the problem, stressed Siza Vieira.

This “is a reflection” that has to be done, and is particularly relevant at a time when the European Commission require Portugal to reflect on the financing of the economy, about the need to reduce the debt and to capitalize on the companies, stressed the member of the group chaired by José António Barros and where also participating in the Emerald, Golden and João Nuno Mendes.