LIV CAPITAL - 11040 Ciudad de México

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico’s new, second stock exchange BIVA aims to be operating by the start of next year, as it bids to capture part of the existing market in Latin America’s No. 2 economy and entice more companies to issue stock, the new exchange’s president said on Monday.

The Institutional Stock Exchange, known by its Spanish acronym BIVA, is set to formally receive its operating license at an event in Mexico City on Tuesday. It will compete with the Mexican Stock Exchange, or BMV BOLSAA.MX.

BIVA president Santiago Urquiza told Reuters that he saw a lot of potential for new public offerings from companies with annual sales of between 500 million pesos and 1 billion pesos ($28 million to $56 million).

“There is a very big seedbed of highly prepared and institutionalized companies ... which are very close to the requirements to be listed,” said Urquiza, who is also president of financial infrastructure provider CENCOR.

BIVA will be backed by technology provided by Nasdaq, the second-biggest U.S. exchange, that is used by more than 70 markets around the world, he said.

Urquiza said he expected the number of publicly traded companies in Mexico could increase over the next three years by about 30 percent to around 200 while daily volume in Mexican stocks could grow 50 percent to around 20 billion pesos.

($1 = 17.9300 Mexican pesos)