P.M. BRIEFING : Belgrade Exchange Reopened

The Belgrade stock exchange, the first of its kind in Communist-ruled Yugoslavia, resumed trading today after a break of almost half a century.

“The Yugoslav Capital Market--Belgrade” will be the first of three stock exchanges set up in Yugoslavia this year, said Branislav Cosic, deputy manager of the new exchange. The other two will open in the northern cities of Zagreb and Ljubljana, he said, without giving a date.

The Belgrade exchange, founded by four of Yugoslavia’s largest banks, will initially handle only government bonds, but it will soon start trading stocks issued by private companies, Cosic said.

In the first day, “no bonds or stocks offered by the four founding banks were exchanged,” Cosic said. He said today “was just an experimental day for future activities,” but he did not elaborate on the start-up operation.

The Belgrade exchange, first established in 1886, folded in 1941 when Yugoslavia was occupied by Nazi Germany.