OSAKA -- The president of the Osaka Securities Exchange said Tuesday he is confident that Nasdaq Japan, a market operating under the auspices of the OSE, will reach its target of seeing 80 firms listed in calendar 2001.
"There are already 64 companies on the waiting list that are likely to be listed by the end of the year," Goro Tatsumi said at a news conference. Sixteen firms have been listed since the start of the year.
Nasdaq Japan is the Japanese version of the U.S. Nasdaq over-the-counter market. It marked its first anniversary of trading Tuesday.
Tatsumi described the past year as being "a smooth start" for the market, which is one of three markets for startup companies in Japan.
The others are the Mothers market on the Tokyo Stock Exchange and the over-the-counter market.
He pointed out that the number of listed companies had reached 56 and that the ratio of stocks quoted among those listed is the biggest after that for the first section of the TSE.
Nasdaq Japan is working on the details of a new trading system that includes an auctioning method, he said. "We hope to introduce the system as early as possible next year," he added.