Volume III
July 2007
Securities Board of Nepal
Thapathali, Kathmandu
2
SEBON Journal, Vol.III, July 2007
Building a Dynamic Capital Market
- Deepak Raj Kafle
Nepalese financial system is characterized by small but a growing capital market.
During the past 14 years of its operation, securities market has witnessed three market phases of ups and downs. The latest upswing started from the fiscal year
2002/03 and is continuing. During this phase, Nepse index, the market indicator climbed from 205 to 621 (July 10, 2007). The market capitalization of the listed stocks climbed from Rs. 35.24 billion to Rs. 169.05 billion during the same period. During the past five years, capital mobilized through public issue and rights offerings has been in the tune of Rs. 8.4 billion from 109 issues. In the fiscal year 2006/2007 alone, capital worth of Rs. 2.8 billion has been mobilized from 34 issues.
In spite of expansion in size, the securities market is yet to make quality transformation gaining depth and maturity. The market lacks sectoral diversification of performing listed companies, access to secondary trading services is limited , transparency and efficiency of the issuer and market is not sufficient, capacity of the regulator, exchange and the players is limited, the market is featured by active individual investors and the institutional investors are conspicuously absent. The market infrastructures supporting the trading, clearing and settlement are not sufficient. Thus the effort to build a dynamic market is going to be an ardent task requiring a lot of commitment and efforts of the government, regulator, market place, maker players and the investors.
The vision for a new Nepal has to have an important place for a dynamic capital market. It should be a market where issuers have choice to tap the funds at lower cost while people have choice to invest in the securities with different risk and return. In essence,
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