By Mohamed El-Baaly

The Egyptian Financial Supervisory Authority (EFSA) is currently working on developing its corporate governance and disclosures, a requirement to be listed in Egypt's Stock Exchange, EFSA Chairman has told Aswat Masriya in a recent interview.

Sherif Sami, EFSA Chairman, said that the expected technological developments and usage of modern techniques would have a positive impact on dealing with various investors.

Sami chairs the Authority responsible for supervising and regulating non-banking financial markets, which was established in 2009.

EFSA aims at maintaining corporate governance to ensure transparency, mechanisms of accountability and improve the ability to predict market risks.

Sami said that Egypt's current legislation in this regard is good.

"Rules of governance in Egypt have significantly contributed to enhancing the transparency level in corporations listed in the stock exchange market," he added.

Sami said that he looked forward to further legislative amendments in this field to include the election of corporate board members through accumulative voting (one vote for one seat), so that the majority of shareholders would not be able to impose their control over the formation of administrative councils.

Sami said that the guidelines set by the Central Bank of Egypt in banks governance are considered a reference for many.

When asked about the impact of recent court orders to freeze funds that belonged to the Muslim Brotherhood on companies listed on the stock exchange, Sami explained that they had minor affect.

"The frozen funds with respect to the shares of companies in the Egyptian stock market can only be described as too little," the EFSA chairman said.

Egypt has banned the "Muslim Brotherhood" and declared it as a terrorist group. The government froze all funds owned by its leaders and companies associated with them. They were accused of being involved in terrorist acts following the ouster of President Mohamed Mursi, who hailed from the Brotherhood, in July.

Sami said that working on strengthening transparency mechanisms and governance in the stock market attracts local and foreign funds in addition to financial institutions to investments.

He added that disclosure levels in the stock market are fine.