June 12, 2008
CSE President hopes industrialisation to get momentum through capital market development
Says at seminar with Engineers
 Chittagong Stock Exchange President Mr. Nasiruddin Ahmed Chowdhury today said through investing in the Capital Market, Bangladesh would be able to promote industrialization as well as increasing GDP and Per Capita Income.
“We are encouraging investors to collect funds from Capital Market instead of Bank Financing. In recent surveys, it has been seen that only 30 percent of funds are being collected from Capital Market, while remaining 70 percent are coming from Bank borrowings with huge interest payments,” the CSE President said at a seminar on “Bangladesh Stock Market- Investment Tools and Techniques,” jointly organised by the CSE and Chittagong chapter of IEB to sensitise engineers on Bangladesh stock market. A total of 100 engineers attended the seminar held at the Institution of Engineers in Chittagong.
Professor Abu Ahmed, Pro-Vice Chancellor of East West University presented a keynote paper while Engr. M Ali Ashraf was the Chief Guest.
CEO Mr. A B Siddique also spoke on the occasion.
The CSE President said CSE has been the pioneer in the country’s capital market to introduce automation, CDS in the trading system and launching SOUTH ASIAN FEDERATION OF EXCHANGES (SAFE).
“We have already submitted our proposal to SEC for introduction of BOOK BUILDING in our Capital Market. Under this method the issuer companies will be able to fetch a reasonably fair value for their securities, which is expected to encourage corporate bodies with strong financial foundation to come up in the market,” the CSE president said.
He said to meet the demand for quality shares; CSE is trying to introduce speculative financial instruments in the market. In this regard CSE is working hard to popularize Derivative Securities like Options and Futures.
“We are launching our new Branches in different locations of our country to facilitate existing and potential investors,” he added.
Professor Abu Ahmed, Pro-Vice Chancellor of East West University while presenting his keynote paper said, “the country could arrange adequate funds from ever expanding capital market for implementing big projects without borrowing money accepting unfavourable conditions from the donars.” He opined that Bangladesh does not need to privatise the public sector organisations for the purposes but could easily benefit immensely by only off-loading certain portion of their shares through the capital market. Prof Abu Ahmed said the country’s growing capital market could be an ideal and alternative source for organising necessary funds for implementing huge development projects rather than depending on foreign donors aid agencies. In this context, he said, we have scopes to pump up adequate money from the capital market to execute the project to turn the existing Dhaka-Chittagong highway into 4-lanes and make Bangladesh Biman profitable by purchasing required aircrafts for its fleet instead of borrowing money from foreign sources with high interest and tougher conditions.
Prof Sikandar Khan said giant foreign investors will come forward in a bigger way and feel encouraged in investing their money in the country if we would be able to expand the existing 12 billion US dollar capital market to 30 billion US dollars.
“Our stock market is getting a better shape day-by-day and the regulatory bodies should come up with certain measures to make it a vibrant one.
“The regulatory bodies should also monitor the stock market activities. I hope that no more scam will be happened like 1996 when the country’s stock market witnessed a bubble and bust.” Prof. Ahmed told the seminar.
He said, “Several lakhs of non-resident Bangladeshis living in the UK, the USA and other countries have been contributing greatly to national economy through sending remittances on a regular basis. Yet three are scopes of investment in the country’s stock market and the Bangladeshi expatriates can take the opportunity that will develop the stock market.”
He requested SEC to make dialogue with Finance Ministry to expedite the divestment process of government shares in the Stock Market.
Engr. M Ali Ashraf, the Chief Guest of the seminar said, "SEC sometimes takes necessary measures in changing rules and regulation in order to protect small investors. Irrational price movement of some stocks may bring adverse impact on the market."
Mr. A B Siddique, CEO of CSE said “Bangladesh Stock Market will add new products like Derivatives, ETF etc. in future. Our regulatory body has been trying to float more mutual funds to the market and more mutual funds are in the offing for NRBs.”
Mr. AKM Shahroze Alam, Deputy Manager of Corporate Development of CSE made a presentation on Bangladesh Capital Market and its present situation, while IEB Secretary Engr. Md. Abul Kashem made welcome address in the seminar. |
