FICCI, SEBI to jointly analyse the state of Indian capital market

Mumbai: Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) will analyse the current state of the Indian capital market in the global context.

This partnership will lay down a roadmap to improve the capital market's depth, reach and efficiency. FICCI, in association with SEBI, is organising a convention on capital markets, CAPAM 2003, on 6 and 7 August 2003 at 10 am at Hotel Oberoi Towers, Mumbai.

CAPAM 2003 is being held under the aegis of FICCI's capital market committee, chaired by Naina Lal Kidwai, vice-chairman and managing director, HSBC Securities and Capital Markets (India) Pvt Ltd. G N Bajpai, chairman, SEBI, will deliver the keynote address in the inaugural session at the conference. Alain Morvan, senior vice-president, international relations, New York Stock Exchange, will also be delivering a special address in the inaugural session at the conference.

Says Kidwai: "The Indian capital market has witnessed some significant reforms on the structural, operational and regulatory front over a period of time. The changes such as abolition of controller of capital issues, establishment of market regulator [SEBI], introduction of a nationwide screen-based trading, dematerialisation of securities, electronic trading, sophisticated risk-management techniques, derivative trading, rolling settlement, shortening of settlement cycle, ban on deferral products, formation of Clearing Corporation of India and demutualisation of stock exchanges have marked a new era in the functioning of the capital market."

Some facts of the Indian capital market are:

• No of listed companies: Around 9,000
  
• Market cap at BSE (as on 11 July 2003): Rs 738971(000cr)
  
• Demat settlement accounts for 99.99% of turnover settled by delivery
  
• Shortening of settlements cycle from T+3 to T+2 has Indian Stock Market move a step ahead of some developed markets like the US, Japan, Singapore, and Australia, which is still following T+3
  
• Up Till 18 July 2003 FIIs have pumped in $2400.3 million in the Indian stock market

Continues Kidwai: "While on one hand these changes have made the Indian market comparable to many developed markets in terms of a number of qualitative parameters, on the other hand, our markets still face some inherent problems such as lack of depth and liquidity and lack of investor confidence."

Key issues that would be debated at the conference will include: Outlook for India's Equity Markets and What India should do to improve its Capital Markets, Stock Exchanges and Corporate Governance, Pension Sector Reforms, Enhancing Liquidity in the Stock Market and Derivatives Market-Future Prospects, Debt Market.

Other key speakers at CAPAM 03 conference are:
1. U K Sinha , Joint Secretary , Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance
2. Usha Thorat, Executive Director, RBI
3. Pratip Kar, Executive Director, SEBI
4. Dr Ajay Shah, Consultant, Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance
5. Pashupati K Advani, Director, Advani Shares Brokers Pvt Ltd
6. Milind Barve, MD, HDFC Asset Management Co Ltd
7. U R Bhat, Head of Equities, JP Morgan India Pvt Ltd
8. P K Chaudhary, Managing Director, ICRA Ltd
9. Neeraj Gambhir, Head of Proprietary Trading, ICICI Bank Ltd
10. Rajat Jain, CIO, Principal Mutual Funds
11. Madhu Kannan, Managing Director, International Business Development, NYSE
12. Matt Linsey, Head-Emerging Markets, Deutsche Bank Asset Management
13. Tarun Mahrotri, Manager-Treasury, HSBC Securities and Capital Markets (India) Pvt Ltd
14. Deena A Mehta, MD, Asit C Mehta Investment Intermediates Ltd
15. Ravi Mohan, MD & CEO, CRISIL
16. Sundaresan Naganath, Joint President & CIO, DSP Merrill Lynch Fund Manager Ltd
17. Vikas Nath, Head of Emerging Markets Securities, HSBC Investment Bank plc
18. Dr R H Patil, Chairman, Clearing Corporation of India
19. Chitra Ramkrishna, Dy Managing Director, National Stock Exchange Ltd
20. G V Nageswara Rao, CEO, IDBI Capital Market Services Ltd
21. Punita Kumar Sinha, Managing Director, CIBC World Markets Corp
22. Sumant Sinha , President and Head of Group Corporate Finance, Aditya Birla Group
23. H Srikrishnan, Head of Transactional Banking & Operations, HDFC Bank
24. Amit Tandon, MD, FITCH Rating India Pvt Ltd
25. Susan Thomas, IGIDR
26. Dr Manoj Vaish, Executive Director & CEO, Bombay Stock Exchange
27. Kamlesh Vikamsey, Council Member, ICAI

Gurcharan Das, the author India Unbound, will also be delivering the special address on 'India Unbound' at the conference. To get a market opinion on the state of capital market, FICCI has conducted a market-wide survey, which will be released on 4 August 2003.