Today  the annual awarding ceremony was held at the Riga Stock Exchange

in  the  categories  Broker of the Year, Contact Person of the Year and

Stock Exchange Special Award. As a tradition, the awards go to the best

capital  market participants. The award Broker of the Year 2001 went to

Jānis  Neimanis  from  "Baltijas  Tranzītu  banka". Ingrīda Allika from

"Pirmā  Banka"  became  Contact  Person  of  the  Year 2001. Riga Stock

Exchange  Special  Award went to Kaspars Ieviņš for his contribution to

increasing  the public awareness about I-broker (a RSE service allowing

commercial  bank  and brokerage company clients to do their own trading

via  a  safe  Internet  connection).  The  prize  is  a  statuette of a

self-assured  man and is a symbol of pursuit of achievement. The author

is  artist  Uldis Zariņš. The main criteria for awarding with Broker of

the  Year  is  the number of deals, evaluation by the clients and other

brokers,  as  well as research done on the capital market. The criteria

for  awarding with Contact Person of the Year is the amount and quality

of  the  information  disclosed  to the market, as well as the issuer's

transparency  to  the investors and improvements during past year. Last

year the prize-winners were: Marģers Počs from "Baltikums" bank (Broker

of the Year 2000), Ingrīda Šmite from JSC "Grindeks" (Contact Person of

the  year  2000)  and  Ainārs Sedlenieks from "Dienas bizness"newspaper

(Special Award for promoting Latvian capital market).