TORONTO: Thomas A Kloet, chief executive officer (CEO) of the Toronto Stock Exchange Group, has good reasons to beef up his confidence in China.
"Many good (performance) stories Chinese companies need to tell to North American investors, and TMX is the right stock exchanges for them to list," Kloet said in an interview by Xinhua on Friday,
Two key figures have supported his confidence. "Fifty-three Chinese companies went listed at TMX, with about C$8.6 billion ($8 billion) in market capital as of December 31 2009, which doubled the market capital of a year ago. "
He noted that companies from China went listed at TMX and used it as a gateway to North America investors.
"We host over 4,000 listed companies between our two equity exchanges: Toronto Stock Exchange and TSX Venture Exchange," said Kloet.
As the first CEO of the Singapore Stock Exchange from 2000 to 2002, Kloet has found his present job closely connected with China, for TMX also aimed to lure Chinese small and medium-sized companies, who want to go international.
"Especially those in natural resources and mining companies, financial sector and clean tech sector," stressed Kloet.
In fact, 2009 is a record year in the 157 years' history of TMX for financing in market, said its CEO, adding that "we raised roughly C$65 billion in capital, our stories are bit different from some other markets around the world."
"We have been very active in going to China, with 10 different senior executive trips to China in 2009."
He said he was very impressed with Chinese markets and expects new fabulous growth story to come from China in 2010.
"The international investment communities are expecting good stories from China, and are eager to invest in Chinese market."
"I can see good signs for next year which was demonstrated by last year's figures, and I'm also optimistic about potentials that both China's economy and Chinese companies who want to go to North America," Kloet told Xinhua.
TMX raised C$1billion from Chinese companies.
With more than 150 years of history, TMX Group is the world's second largest stock exchange by number of listings, hosts 55 percent of the world's public mining companies, and 43 percent of the world's public oil and gas companies.
