Speakers at a seminar on May 21 stressed the need for promoting effective corporate governance in the country to boost investors’ confidence. They said the capital market in Bangladesh is still at an emerging stage with market capitalisation amounting to only 6.5 percent of GDP, while neighbouring countries like India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka enjoy much higher rates of market capitalisation. Lack of investor confidence caused by inadequate practice of corporate governance is primarily responsible for such situation, the speakers observed.

They were speaking at a seminar on ‘Corporate Governance in Bangladesh : How Best to Institutionalise it’ organised by Dhaka Chamber of Commerce & Industry (DCCI) in cooperation with Center for Private Enterprises (CIPE), an affiliate of US Chamber of Commerce, in the capital. DCCI President Hossain Khaled chaired the seminar while Shahab Enam Khan of Jahangirnagar University presented the keynote paper.

Shahab Khan in his keynote paper said due to the small size of market capitalisation in Bangladesh, most of the companies here depend on the banks as their major source of financing. In order to overcome this situation, he suggested that the provision for companies’ disclosure of information be made a pre-requisite. DCCI Senior Vice President M Shahjahan Khan, former President M A Momen and the Directors were present among others.