Securities Market in Bangladesh: A Critical Appraisal of its Growth Since its Inception in 1954

Bangladesh securities market came into being in 1954. Despite its operation of half of a century, its growth is unimpressive. The market remains in its infancy because of multifarious weaknesses affecting its operation. Legal and regulatory weaknesses are considered to have hindered the market most from growing to a reasonable extent. The securities regulator introduced unrealistic reforms one after another over the last decade. The lack of appropriate legal reforms has sometimes created regulatory fragility and in turn facilitated corporate culpability. Nothing significant has been done so far to provide protection to investors. The regulator in January 1999 imported the disclosure philosophy from developed economies by discarding the previous paternalistic merit regulation without any study being conducted on the market readiness to utilise it. The adoption of the new philosophy aimed to restore investors' confidence which was eroded by the unprecedented share scam in 1996. But it eventually proved counterproductive. This article suggests that the issue of investor protection be addressed on a priority basis in order to achieve the real growth of the ailing capital market.