Accra, May 31, GNA - The Ghana Stock Exchange is committed to increasing the number of listed companies on the official list by at least six, that is, four equities and two debt instruments this year.

Mr Frank Adu Jnr., Chairman of the Exchange's Council announced this at the 17th Annual General Meeting of the bourse in Accra on Thursday. "Council and Management will therefore, pursue all prospective listings, including corporate and government bonds as well as private sector companies and government divestitures," he said. Last year, the Exchange recorded five new listings, including Ecobank Ghana Limited, Ecobank Transnational Incorporated and Transactions Solutions Ghana Limited, among others. The State Insurance Company and the Ghana Oil Company are some of the targeted institutions for listing this year. Mr. Adu said the Exchange's project to automate the trading platform was on course and was optimistic that the programme would be completed by the close of the year.

On the transfer of listed securities into the Central Securities Depository, a mechanism for the admittance and eventual dematerialization and dealings in securities deposited, he said it would eliminate the bottlenecks and risks associated with excessive paper work in post trade processing and registration.

Consequently, a committee had been set up comprising the CSD, the Exchange, the Securities and Exchange Commission and Licensed Dealing Members to discuss all aspects of the future migration of listed securities into the CSD.

Mr Adu said the Exchange would devote a lot of time and resources to public education on the migration of equities into the CSD in the year. He also announced that government had accepted the key recommendations of a technical working group which was mandated to provide a blue print to guide government in future divestitures. On the performance of the Exchange last year, Mr Adu said on the secondary market 98 million shares valued at 476 billion cedis changed hands compared to 81 million shares worth 464 billion in 2005. Market capitalization ended the year 22 per cent up at 112,496 billion and the GSE All-Share Index recovered from the negative of 29 per cent of 2005 to register a modest gain of five per cent in 2006.