Sri Lanka SEC regulator launches investment guide

Feb 13, 2013 (LBO) - Sri Lanka's Securities and Exchange Commission has launched an investment guide in Sinhala language to benefit new entrants to the market.

The book, Ayojanayata Mulapuramu or 'Introduction to Investment' was written by SEC's assistant director, external relations and market development Tushara Jayaratne.

"There has been a significant increase in domestic investor participation with the growth of the capital market and we are of the view that this book will assist investors to obtain a proper understanding of the various aspects of investing in the capital market," the SEC said.

The publication explains factors to be considered before investing in the stock market, step by step processes of investing in stocks and unit trusts, common mistakes made by investors when investing in the capital market and how to select stocks.

SEC says there is dearth of books written in Sinhala for investors.
http://lbo.lk/fullstory.php?nid=1960539654

The Securities and Exchange Commission of Sri Lanka (SEC) yesterday launched a book titled ‘Ayojanayata Mulapuramu’ with a view to enhance knowledge in investing in the capital market of Sri Lanka.

The book launch was held at the SEC auditorium under the patronage of Dr. Sarath Amunugama, Senior Minister of International Monetary Cooperation and Deputy Minister of Finance.

The SEC has a dual mandate of regulating and developing the capital market of Sri Lanka and this publication will undoubtedly give impetus towards developing the capital market.

There has been a significant increase in domestic investor participation with the growth of the capital market and the SEC is in the view that this book will assist investors to obtain a proper understanding of the various aspects of investing in the capital market.

Furthermore, this publication includes practical and useful topics, i.e. factors to be considered before investing in the stock market, step-bystep process of investing in stocks and unit trusts, common mistakes made by investors when investing in the capital market and how to select stocks.

At present, there is a dearth of books written in Sinhala for investors on investing in the capital market and this prompted the SEC to publish ‘Ayojanayata Mulapuramu’ based on the article series published in the Lankadeepa newspaper.

The book is written by Assistant Director, External Relations and Market Development of the SEC, Tushara Jayaratne.
http://www.dailymirror.lk/mirror-stock-watch-live/25742-sec-launches-book-to-enhance-investor-education-.html

By Amavasya Sirisena

"There are 701,250 (3.5%) registered investors in the stock market while Sri Lanka has a total population of 20 million. Among them, there are about less than 30,000 investors who actively participate in every three months regularly in the stock market. Likewise only 1.7% of investors have been active in the stock market out of the total population of the country. Referring to these statistics, it is very understandable that we need more investors to invest in our stock market. Obviously this is not something that we cannot reach.

We need to increase this up to eight per cent to 10% investors within next two or three years," said Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) Acting Director General, Dr. Hareendra Dissabandara at the launching ceremony of the book Ayojanayata Mulapuramu compiled by SEC Assistant Director, External Relations and Market Development Tushara Jayaratne, on 13 February at the SEC auditorium under the patronage of Senior Minister of International Monetary Cooperation and Deputy Minister of Finance, Dr. Sarath Amunugama.

SEC has decided to compile such a book with the intention of making the public more aware about investing in the stock market. "We first came up with the idea of making the investors and the public's awareness on investing in the stock market in 2011 and started to publish articles on how to do proper investing in the stock market in all three languages: Sinhala, Tamil and English on newspapers. This book launch is another giant step of our project. What is prominent in this book is that any person with no knowledge can read the book as it is written in a more comprehensible way with all the basic knowledge to investing in the stock market." Dissabandara stated.

"In the past investing was something limited to a rich class where they used to reign over the stock market. The main reason for this is, the public at that moment had no knowledge of how to invest and get profits from the stock market. Actually SEC is conducting various projects in order to spread the knowledge on investing among the public. We are conducting various programmes on television, radio and articles on newspapers. What we want is to see the interest of the public to invest in the stock market," emphasized SEC Chairman Nalaka Godahewa.

Addressing the gathering, Amunugama stated the importance of having many investors to invest their money on company shares so that it will assist in raising the value of shares of the stock market. This will help those companies to gain more capital as it'll help to accelerate the economy of the country.

"We can observe an economic development ranging to seven per cent to eight per cent in Sri Lanka as this is a record that we have made among the region. According to the reports of United Nations (UN) it shows Sri Lanka will get the first position as she will record the best Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the region," said Amunugama confidently.

The main factor that is needed in order to reach such an economic development is the capital of companies related to the stock market. The stock market must provide the capital that is necessary for those companies for such an economic development. In order to provide the capital, stock market should have particular set of investors who could buy shares of those companies.

"Still we have enough room to grow and spread in order to be satisfied that we have reached the particular targets. Lot of investors must gather and must provide capital as it'll be a great help for the capital markets to reach higher levels. Without money, markets cannot go on. Actually it'll be a great advantage if investors make it a point to buy more shares from the private companies, as it is more profitable than taking loans. This will directly help us to see an enhancement in the economy even as it helps the companies to administer the amount of shares. We all know a company having a very good administration of shares will goes up. Shares of the companies using the old format will go down giving huge opportunities for the companies with good administration to go up. So in this case, weak companies must come under the power of other companies with an investment capacity and they will again come up. In this way the country will develop.

Actually, in order to improve the public to get involved in this sector we must clear the path for them to come and invest in the stock market confidently. On the other hand, this will reduce the chance of the public losing their money to sakvitis," concluded Amunugama explaining the significance of the stock market on the country's economic development.

The knowledge that the general public have about the stock market is very poor. Since it is more challenging to cope with the problems that arise because of the lack of investors with good knowledge. It can be clearly observed that higher the number of good investors it will do good for both share holding companies and the country's economy. Stating the importance of the book Ayojanayata Mulapuramu the author: Jayaratne stated that there are only few books available based on the process of capital markets and the number of books available was less than 10. Out of that there are only few books written in Sinhala, as most of these books are for the university students and other academic studies. So in such a situation we thought of publishing a book for the benefit of the investors.

Actually this book Ayojanayata Mulapuramu is mainly for the investors to get an idea about the capital markets as there has been a significant increase in domestic investor participation with the growth of the capital market. We have mentioned so many important facts and figures relating to the industry that no other book has covered before. It includes common mistakes made by investors when investing in the capital market, factors that have to be consider before investing in the stock market and how to select stocks, irregularities that happens in the stock market (investors must be aware that there can be irregularities in the stock market for example when it comes to insider trading, investors could be insider traders without even knowing the stock market) a step by step process of investing in stocks and unit trusts and so on. He also stated that the SEC was taking steps to publish the English translation of the book Ayojanayata Mulapuramu in the near future.
http://ceylontoday.lk/22-24572-news-detail-enhancing-knowledge-on-capital-market.html