SIGNS OF PROGRESS

what may be an acid test for investor confidence in postwar Iraq, a revamped Baghdad Stock Exchange is due to open later this month and may have more than 100 companies listed by the end of the year.

Financial and technical advisers with the U.S.-led civilian authority in Iraq have been working for months to get the exchange back on its feet after it shut down nearly a year ago and its listings were frozen...

"We're on track to get it done by the end of the month," Michael Pierson, a spokesman for the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority which is overseeing the exchange's relaunch, said this week.

According to bankers familiar with the project, the plan would be to relist 10 to 15 stocks a month, with companies only being requoted once their accounts have been verified by internationally recognized auditors and checks have been made into major shareholders to weed out former regime members.