The Chairman of the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) Council on Thursday said there was the need for stakeholders of the capital market to identify and implement programmes that would develop the sector rapidly and help promote the era of golden age of business.

The Council Chairman, Mr Jude Buckner said this was important because the country lacked a true capital market despite the good intentions of the government and the existence of the stock exchange.

He said: "The sad reality is that despite our good intentions, we really do not have a capital market to speak of in Ghana today."

The occasion for the comments was a forum organised by the GSE in Accra on the topic: "Capital Markets - A Strategic Pathway to the Golden Age of Business".

Mr Bucknor said other countries have been able to open up their capital markets to include a variety of investment options.

Ghana's capital market now was made up of 25 listed equities, 23 Government of Ghana Index Linked Bonds and 5 corporate bonds. The GSE market capitalisation at the moment stands at around 7 trillion cedis, which is small by international standards.

Other setbacks include limited liquidity and low trading volumes which compared to other markets, the valuation of most equities tend to be low and a reflection of low liquidity of the market with limited investor awareness.

Mr. Bucknor noted that strives must be made to create an environment that encourages domestic capital formation as the driving force for Ghana's development, adding, "this requires the existence of strong domestic financial institutions that efficiently channel saving to investment'.

Mr. K.S. Yamoah, acting Managing Director of GSE, giving an overview of the performance of the stock exchange for the year 2002, said All-Share Index went up to 46%.

He attributed the reasons of the gain in the all- share index to relative stability on the macro-economic front, good operating results by listed companies, significant dividend payment by some of the listed companies and increased demand for shares.

The Market capitalisation reached 6,184 billion, representing an increase of 58% resulting from increase in new shares and price changes.