Finance Minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith has claimed the instability at the capital market has somewhat decreased in the recent times, and will lessen further following demutualisation of the two bourses.
He was speaking at the inauguration ceremony of the International Plastics, Industry Exhibition at the Bangabandhu International Convention Centre on Wednesday.
In October, the cabinet approved a draft Demutualisation Act for separating the management of the country’s two stock exchanges from their owners.
Once the parliament passes the bill, independent directors will be assigned to majority of the directorial posts in the twin bourses. Capital can be collected from the share market through initial public offering (IPO) of the stock exchange.
The Finance Minister proposed that entrepreneurs gather capital from the stock exchanges, saying, “Several laws have been made for the capital market. At present, the instability at the market has lessened, and it will decrease further after demutualisation.”
The government took the initiative for demutualisation of the stock exchanges in 2011 following turmoil in the capital market. Various other measures, including the Securities and Exchange Commission (Amendment) Act-2012 and changes in the Securities and Exchange (Amendment) Act, were taken.
Despite these efforts, 343,618 investors have left the capital market since last year, and the DSE capitalisation has come down by about Tk 280 billion.
The average daily transaction in March last year ran in thousands of crores, but now it has come below Tk 135 crore.
The Finance Minister at the inauguration ceremony also talked about the potential of the plastic industry.
He said, “Plastic products worth 100 million dollars are currently being exported from Bangladesh. I hope it will reach 1 billion dollar in the next five years.”
He proposed starting a plastic institute through public-private participation to create skilled workers in the industry, and promised his assistance in this regard.
350 institutions from 150 countries including India, Pakistan, Taiwan, Korea, Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom are taking part in the four-day fair.bdnews24.com
