JS Global Capital has finalized an agreement with Mubasher of Dubai to introduce the next generation of online trading system in Pakistan. The JS Group has always played an important role in leading the development of local stock markets and with the signing of this agreement, will reinforce that commitment to Pakistani investors. Mr. GM Malkani, CEO of JS Global, outlined that, ìthis is the beginning of JS Globalís strategy to provide online financial solutions to its customers. Integrating the state-of-the-art Mubasher system with the online banking service provided by JS Bank will be stage two of our development plans. Mr. Rizwan Khan is heading this project and the three different trading terminals of the Mubasher system will be available to our customers as soon as the deployment and testing phase is complete.*

That deal was managed by Citigroup, HSBC and Deutsche Bank. But markets in the region have since been hit hard by a credit squeeze and US subprime related losses at global financial firms in the second half of 2007, and more recently, by worries about a recession in the United States.

The widely-followed iTRAXX Asia ex-Japan high-yield index, an important indicator of risk aversion, widened as much as 547 basis points (bps) on Monday, just below the record 550 bps hit on Jan 23, according to one trader.

That has made issuers more reluctant to sell bonds to overseas investors as they have had to pay sizeable premiums to attract investors. The Philippines and Indonesia have been the only sovereign bond issuers so far this year, in deals worth a combined $2.5 billion.

Vietnam has said it will sell about $1 billion in bonds this year, in a deal that is being highly anticipated in the markets as the country’s last bond sale was in October 2005. “In terms of sovereigns, I guess it’d be much better if Vietnam can come first,” said a fund manager in Hong Kong.