No result meeting
20 July 2012 12:56 pm
The meeting between stock market stakeholders and President Mahinda Rajapaksa ended without any significant outcome today, as predicted by a number of independent analysts.
According to informed sources, the President had given a patient hearing to all the parties and emphasized that this would be the last time he will listening to their grievances, noting that the Treasury Secretary would hereafter intervene in the case of market related malpractices.
“The only useful outcome of the meeting was the President making a requestto stock brokers to submit market proposals for the budget 2013, thatis to be presented in November.
In addition to stock brokers, high net worth investors, Commissioners of the Securities and the Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Board of Directors of the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) and several other top corporate personalities, small share holder rights activists and a former SEC Chairman attended the meeting.
Treasury Secretary got the ball rolling and said the meeting was convened mainly to get views from all the parties concerned about Colombo bourse issues and its development.
Investor Dilith Jayaweera made a presentation highlighting how recent SEC regulations contributed to the downfall of the market. However, the charges leveled by Jayaweera about an overregulated market was countered by a former SEC Chairman C.P. De Silva citingthat nobody linked with misconduct cases wasgivena prison sentence during the past 25 years.
Representing brokers, Colombo Stock Brokers Chairman (CSBA) Sriyan Gurusinghe, Tushan Wickramasinghe also spoke about the over regulation and the lack of positive sentiment in the Colombo bourse while JB Securities CEO Murtaza Jafferjeegave different reasons for the market setback.
Following the speeches by brokers, several others including minor share holder rights activists K.C Vignarajah also spoke. Finally, Chairman Tilak Karunaratne stressed that the Colombo bourse is an under-developed market and emphasized the need to introduce international standards in terms of regulation and risk mitigation.