TASHKENT, Oct. 8 (Xinhua) -- Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev has instructed to revise the legislation and scrap unnecessary restrictions that were restraining the country's stock market from developing, the president's press service said Tuesday.
At a government meeting, the president noted that the mechanism for issuing securities and selling them on the stock market is not being efficiently used, and there were about 100 regulations and many restrictions which are still hampering the sector, the press service said.
The total value of shares in the stock market is barely 6 percent of the country's GDP, which is far behind other countries. The president instructed that a stock market development strategy for 2020-2025 be formulated, which would bring the volume of freely traded securities to 10-15 percent of GDP.
Uzbekistan has resumed the issuance of government bonds after a long break, however, they were sold only to banks through the currency exchange and the number of professional stock market participants is below 100.
The state owns 85 percent of the shares of 605 joint-stock companies. Of these, only 5 percent shares of 105 companies are traded on the stock market.
The president also noted the need to strengthen the protection of the rights of investors and minority shareholders, to improve the procedure for payment and collection of dividends, according to the press service.
The government was tasked to improve corporate governance, switch to international standards of financial reporting and international audit.
