This important event took place at the El Salvador Stock Exchange, receiving the representatives of the Stock Exchanges and Depositories of Panama and Nicaragua, and in the presence of authorities of the Superintendencia del Sistema Financiero and other representatives of the salvadoran securities market.

In this way, the agreement was signed, which represents an important step forward for this regional market.

Rolando Duarte, President of the El Salvador Stock Exchange, welcomed Nicaragua to this successful market, which in almost 6 years of operations has proven that it works, and to date has reached more than US$383 million traded in both markets under the figure of remote operator.

He said that "With these integration advances, we are sending a positive message to the entire region and the world about the power of understanding and cooperation between institutions and countries, in the search for solutions to facilitate more business by eliminating geographic barriers and promoting the modernization and growth of Latin America's capital markets".

This is an efficient and transparent way of doing business in the stock market, we make available to the participants of the three markets, the operational infrastructure that facilitates cross-border operations through remote operators, being the great beneficiaries the salvadorans, panamanians and now the nicaraguans, who will have a stock market with greater liquidity, depth and dynamism.

Olga Cantillo, executive president of Latinex comments that "Once the integration between El Salvador, Panama and Nicaragua is activated, we will offer investors an integrated market with more than US$54 billion in outstanding securities, 346 issuers and 49 stock exchanges. We are at different stages with the rest of the countries and we are confident that our efforts will yield results in the medium term".

The general manager of the Nicaraguan Stock Exchange, Gerardo Argüello commented that "For us, today marks a before and after. With the signing of the agreement our stock market will expand its horizons beyond our borders. Today it is enlarged sixty times, in terms of the assets that our investors will potentially be able to acquire through the future Nicaraguan remote operators that will be accredited in El Salvador and Panama. Additionally, our issuers will have more opportunities to place their instruments and finance the growth of their companies in a more competitive, dynamic and promising space".

It is important to emphasize that the stock exchanges are the facilitators of this trading process, but there are other important actors in the execution of this process: remote operators, depositories and supervisory entities. The remote operators are the direct executors of cross-border operations and are responsible for energizing the integrated market. The Depositories ensure that these cross-border transactions are kept in custody, cleared and settled in accordance with the regulations in force.

And the Superintendencies who, based on recognized jurisdiction agreements, establish all the regulations and their compliance, thus guaranteeing that transactions will be adequately supervised in each of the countries.

Finally, Valentín Arrieta, in his capacity as president of the Asociación de Mercados de Capitales de la Américas (AMERCA), affirms that "This event, the arrival of Nicaragua to the regional common market, is the best example that we are advancing on the right path, towards a real integration among the 10 AMERCA member exchanges and as a natural result, we will attract a wider group of issuers and investors, who will trade in an efficient, transparent, regulated market with sufficient information to generate credibility and confidence in the markets and the public.

Translated by: A.M