The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange building.

JNS.org – The mayor of Haifa is seeking to open a second Israeli stock exchange in his city, to focus on high-tech companies akin to the New York-based Nasdaq stock exchange.

“It would be something which is close to the Nasdaq,” Mayor Yona Yahav said, Reuters reported.

Yahav said he has written a request on the exchange to Israeli Finance Minister Yair Lapid.

Haifa, which is Israel’s third-largest city and its largest port, is home to research centers for several international tech giants including Intel, IBM, Google, Apple, Yahoo, and Microsoft.

The Haifa proposal comes as Israel’s main stock exchange, the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE), has been struggling in recent years. Many Israeli tech companies have bypassed the TASE in favor of listing directly in the New York Stock Exchange.