El Cairo, 29 April 2015.- Global emerging capital market regulators met in Cairo this week and reinforced their commitment to maintain market resilience while focusing on efforts to accelerate the sustainable growth and development of emerging capital markets.

At its three-day Annual Meeting and Conference, IOSCO’s Growth and Emerging Markets (GEM) Committee held a roundtable dialogue with leading global industry players and international organisations. Participants discussed current risks and vulnerabilities in global capital markets, and how capital market regulators should address these challenges. Reinforcing the theme of resilience, the Committee in collaboration with the Toronto Centre also hosted a workshop to strengthen collective regulatory capacity in crisis preparedness and contingency planning, including reviewing relevant crisis management tools.

The GEM Committee also approved in principle the policy report on SME Financing through Capital Markets. Emerging capital markets have a major role to play in bridging the financing gap for SMEs. The report describes some of the successful measures implemented in capital markets around the world that supported SME financing requirements, and highlights key challenges faced by SMEs in accessing market based financing. The report provides recommendations for regulators to assist capital raising for SMEs in emerging markets.

The GEM Committee also discussed the priority areas of emerging market regulators and the committee’s future work program following a review conducted across the membership.  This will involve the development of deeper markets and enhancement of regulatory capacity to reinforce market resilience. Other important subjects discussed were corporate governance, crisis management for capital market regulators, cross-border capital market integration initiatives, and digital disruption and cyber-crime.

The Chair of the GEM Committee, Mr. Ranjit Ajit Singh said “Volatility is a given in today’s challenging environment, and it is critical for emerging markets to continue to focus on building resilient capital markets to withstand global market stresses.  At the same time, emerging markets should reaffirm their commitment to facilitating the development of strong regulatory frameworks to foster sustainable and long-term growth”.

The GEM Committee is the largest of IOSCO’s committees with 94 members, and represents some of the world’s fastest growing economies, including 10 of the G-20 members. The total size of emerging capital markets is currently about USD 146 trillion.