Following the Response For Proposal (RFP) that the Athens Exchange announced on 16th February 2009, NBG Asset Management S.A. is going to issue the new ETF which will track the ATHEX General Index. The creation of the product as well as its launch in the Greek market will take place in June 2009.

ATHEX General Index is a benchmark of the Greek market and represents the trend of the shares traded in the ATHEX Big Capitalization segment. Additionally, it is used by investors as the main tool of watching the ATHEX market trend.

The ATHEX ETFs market was launched in January 2008 and the first ETF tracks the FTSE/ATHEX 20 index. The launch of ETFs offers new prospects in the Greek capital market by further enriching the existing products presented by ATHEX. Their disposal by the Greek Stock Exchange is consistent with the Exchange's strategy of providing products and services of high specifications to the investing public. In this way ETFs will be in a position to correspond to the increasing needs of investors, such as a hybrid market, strengthening at the same time the value of companies that are listed thereto.

ETFs already operate successfully in many stock exchanges abroad. It is worth noting that according to FESE statistics even though during the year 2008 the total turnover in the European exchanges decreased, the total turnover in the ETFs market, on the contrary, remained in high levels.

ETFs are open ended mutual funds, which are issued by Mutual Fund Management Companies (AEDAK) and are admitted to trading in the Stock Exchange. Its main investment goal is to track the performance of a certain index. Like shares, they are traded - via ATHEX Members - during stock exchange's trading hours. ETFs consist of "baskets" of shares, contributing in this way to the diversification of the investment risk.