Council of Ghana Stock Exchange is asking the government to reduce its holdings in some listed companies. Managers of the exchange say this is one of the surest ways to bring out some interest and growth of the market.

Speaking to Joy Business at the Stock Exchanges Annual General Meeting, Council Chair, Dr. Sam Mensah said this could help government earn about 560 million cedis for some infrastructure projects.

He said there are not many shareholders in Ghana because the shares are not available to buy. He asked government to show leadership and bring liquidity into the market by trimming its shares.

He is urging government to for instance release it shares in SIC, GOIL and GCB among others. Dr. Sam Mensah is also asking government to retain the exemption status granted capital gains in respect of listed securities.

This was instituted in 1990 but is set to expire by the end of this year. He also talked about measures being instituted to bring out some excitement on the stock market.

The year 2014 could be described as one of the exciting periods for the Ghana stock Exchange in recent times when it comes to its financials.

The market ended the year with 75 percent jump in profits to little over 4 million Ghana cedis.

The market also witnessed a lot of listings on the main and the alternate market. One can talk of the Mega Africa   capital four million public offer and listing on the Exchange. Debt securities by Izwe loans as well as some debt securities by government, including; Government of Ghana 2 billion Eurobond.

However when it comes to volumes of shares traded there was some bad news, as it went down from 346 million shares to   207 million in 2014. Managers of the Stock Exchange used the Annual General Meeting with shareholders to outline measures to sustain its good run.

In a related development, Managing Director of Standard Chartered Bank has been elected as member of the Ghana Stock Exchange  replacing   Managing Director of GCB , Simon Dornoo.

Source: myjoyonline.com