SEC to stage countrywide road shows to develop Capital Markets

Sinhala, Tamil awareness programmes on SLRC as forerunner:

Ravi Ladduwahetty

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) would shortly host a series of roadshows in a bid to maintain the momentum of the growing Colombo Stock Exchange and to create a share owning democracy. The SEC, in collaboration with the stock broking companies and the Unit Trust will host road shows in all the major cities in Sri Lanka which will give an opportunity for the investors to get an idea of how to invest in equity markets and also Unit Trusts and this will also be preceded by an awareness campaign which will be done with the aid of the Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation, SEC Director General Malik Cader told Daily News Business yesterday.

He also said that an hourly programmes on the aspects of the stock market will be telecast in an hourly live programmes beginning May 15 which will be held for six months and another similar programmes which will be held in the Tamil medium on the same channel in July which will also be held for a six month period. These programmes would be followed by road shows in the outstations beginning in Kandy in the second week of June, which will be held in Galle, Matara, Hambantota, Ratnapura, Badulla, Kurunegala, Negombo, Chilaw, Polonnaruwa, Ampara, Jaffna, Kilinochchi, Vavuniya, Trincomalee, Batticaloa and Kalmunai.

“We want to accelerate these road shows and will attempt to have one almost every month since we have the road show in Kandy in June and the idea of the television programmes will be to create the awareness for the road show,” he said.

The road shows will also enable the residents of the peripheries to not only be aware of the market conditions but will also facilitate the opening of their accounts and registration with the Central Depository Systems.

There will be the officials of the SEC, the Colombo Stock Exchange, stock broking companies and the Unit Trusts who will supplement the seminar with their hands on knowledge of the subject to the investors in the peripheries.

This is the most opportune time for the creation of a share owning democracy at a time that the market is growing and with so many Initial Public Offerings in the pipeline, Cader remarked.

Meanwhile, the Chairman of the Colombo Stockbrokers Association and Ceylinco Stockbrokers Director/ General Manager Srian Gurusinghe described the move of the SEC as a very positive move in the right direction and that the market has come to a level which needed new investors.

He also said that the market has developed over the last three years and that it was most important to sustain it with the expectations very high.

He said that the regulator would create the ideal platform for the development of capital markets with the relaxation of the rules but it was up to the broking community to reach out to the investor by opening more branches in the outstations and create the backdrop for that.

“We will definitely take this process forward to sustain the growth momentum of what has been achieved so far,” he said.