Maria Jose Cole The Costa Rican Securities Regulator (Superintendencia General de Valores or Sugeval), through the National Council for Supervision of the Financial System (Consejo Nacional de Supervisión del Sistema Financiero or Conassif), recently adopted amendments to the rules governing project finance and securitisation in Costa Rica. The amendments make structural and operational reforms to address the concerns market participants have reiterated regarding limitations set out in the previous regulations, on topics such as asset collateral, related party financing and government approvals.
Panagiotis Drakopoulos Far from the saturated marketplace of Europe, the economies of south-east Europe (SEE) have managed to secure a relatively stable growth potential through targeted financial policy reforms. The years before the financial crisis saw a large investment boom in the region by means of capital inflows, inevitably fuelling market bubbles, such as the one that popped six years ago in the Romanian real estate market. Despite the fact that the financial and liquidity crisis may have bucked the upward trend in the real-estate sector, SEE remains a top European destination for short-term and long-term investment opportunities, multiplying its regional growth dynamics. Regionwise, SEE countries seem to border the rest of Europe both in terms of distance and mentality, as opposed to Asian and African countries.
