SANTO DOMINGO.- This year the Dominican Bolsa’s (stock market) volume jumped by more than 500 percent, with an average of RD$4.0 billion traded, at interest rates of around 12 and 14 percent, said its executive director Daris Estrella, who described this year’s operations as “spectacular.”

She said issuers went from five to, whereas trading in the secondary market rose from 7.0 percent to 75 percent.

Estrella said the Bolsa’s entire trading is on fixed income notes, though expects to start offering shares of the different companies as early as two years from now, for which companies must meet the Superintendence of Securities’ requirements.

For 2008 she expects a jump in the issuing of notes by the companies which seek to finance their operations via the Bolsa. "Now there’s a time for a takeoff and finally people are understanding the importance for companies go to the market to access capital."

Estrella spoke to the press during the Regional Conference on Money Laundering in the Financial Market, hosted by the Superintendence of Securities, in coordination with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Agency for International Development, to train on how to keep money from drug-trafficking from affecting the sector.