Mauritian Finance and Economic Development Minist er Pravind Jugnauth said Thursday that the need for financing in the island is e x pected to grow at a fast pace over the next 10 years, depending on the impact of
the euro-zone crisis and other such global events, PANA reported from here.
Speaking at a seminar organized by the Stock Exchange of Mauritius (SEM), Jugnau th said Mauritius would need to mobilize some 225 billion rupees to finance publ i c infrastructure and build a world class physical fabric. (30.00 rupees = US$ 1 )
“If we add this to the amount the private sector will need to raise for its inve stments, we will end up with a total of about 1 trillion rupees that will have t o be mobilized over the next ten years,” he observed.
Jugnauth estimated that the stock exchange would have an even greater role to pl ay in the coming years as Mauritius implements its policies to restructure and d e leverage its corporate sector to face the euro-zone crisis, to seize the opportu n ities of the global economic rebalancing and to build long-term resilience.
“But to support these policy efforts, the stock market must be more liquid. It m ust offer more facilities that will enable a larger number of companies raise ca p ital, in particular equity finance on the market. In fact, one of the major pit f alls of our stock market is the relatively low level of new capital raised by li s ted companies,” the minister observed.
The chairman of the stock exchange, Gaëtan Lan, said the SEM was ready to talk to companies to open up their capital and create value for their shareholders th r ough the exchange.
The Stock Exchange of Mauritius Ltd. was incorporated in 1989 and since then, th e total return index SEMTRI has realized a growth of 4900 per cent and an annual
growth rate of 20.5 per cent.
The price index SEMDEX has grown by 1640 per cent at an annual growth rate of 14 .5 per cent.
