Govt. to differ the 3rd reading of Demutualization Bill
The government does not want to shove anything down the throats of market participants as it intends to work in partnership with all stakeholders, National Policies and Economic Affairs State Minister Dr. Harsha de Silva told parliament, yesterday.
The state minister said this during the debate on the Demutualization of Colombo Stock Exchange Bill in the House, last afternoon.
“We don’t want to shove anything down the throats of market participants. We want to work in partnership with all stakeholders,” Dr. de Silva said.
“Former Minister Basil Rajapaksa did shove things down the throats of investors in 2011 with the underperforming bill and that was the biggest blow to FDI. We haven’t still recovered from it,” he added.
Despite the Demutualization Bill being approved by the cabinet of ministers, a consensus has not been so far reached about the proportion of the ownership of demutualized Colombo bourse. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), backed by the advice from the Asian Development Bank experts, wants the Capital Market Development Fund to have a 40 percent stake in the demutualized bourse and 60 percent for brokers. However, the brokers have been maintaining that they need a 70 percent stake.
Dr. de Silva said the brokers who met Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe in Singapore during the recent investor forum had discussed with him this matter and the understanding was to arrive at a compromise on what the SEC consultants have suggested and what the brokers wanted.