National Assembly (NA) Standing Committee on Finance and Revenue on Monday approved the Stock Exchanges (Corporatisation, Demutualization and Integration) Bill 2008 in consultation with all three stock exchanges.
The committee meeting chaired by MNA Fauzia Wahab held here in the Parliament House, agreed that the Bill would facilitate the demutualization and integration of stock exchanges in the country.
The committee obtained the detailed input of the regulator as well as stock exchanges for reaching consensus on early implementation of the new law. The representatives of all three stock exchanges and small investors, who are invited to the meeting for their views on the bill, unanimously supported the government for its early enactment so as to ensure transparency. They said that Pakistan would come at par with the rest of developed world in the investment sector. The Stock Exchanges were represented by Kamran Y. Mirza, Adnan Afridi, Yaseen Lakhani and Zafar Moti from Karachi, Arif Saeed from Lahore and Rashid Chughtai from Islamabad.
Earlier the SECP made a detailed presentation on the Bill to apprise the members about its nature and explained that with the demutualization, ownership and the trading rights will be segregated and the governance will improve as the malpractices will be minimised. By this bill, the Stock Exchanges will become Public Limited Companies by shares instead of Public Limited Companies by guarantee. The existing members cannot keep more than 40 per cent of the shares while the remaining 60 per cent shares will be sold to the general public and investors.
The SECP had also issued draft Stock Exchanges (Corporatization, Demutualization and Integration) Rules, which are necessary for the development of the capital markets of Pakistan and shall provide for the corporatisation and demutualization of the stock exchanges in Pakistan.
Some members of the committee from opposition were of the view that the regulator was unable protect the interests of the small investors. The meeting was attended by MNAs Nafisa Shah, Nighat Perveen Mir, Khawaja Muhammad Asif, Riaz Fatyana, Abdul Rashid Godil, Bushra Gohar, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, Aftab Shaban Mirani and as a mover Dr Donya Aziz and Hamayun Saifullah MNAs besides other senior officials from Ministry of Finance and SECP.