T&T opting out of regional exchange

The Caribbean Regional Stock Exchange (CXN) will be unable to launch by month-end, despite approval from the regulatory bodies in Barbados, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago.Marlon Yarde, general manager of the Barbados Stock Exchange, told the DAILY NATION yesterday that Trinidadian stockbrokers were now backing away from involvement in the regional body.“The Trinidadians have raised a number of issues regarding the how CXN would operate.“All of a sudden they are making it into a show stopper. We have responded to those concerns and outlined to them that these issues can be resolved and that they are all issues that we are aware of but we can still push ahead with the CXN. We have still left the door open for them,” Yarde noted.The CXN has been touted by major players in the market as necessary for growth in equity trading in the Caribbean.In an interview last week, Securities Commission chairman Sir Neville Nicholls lamented the absence of a regional stock market noting,  “The individual national markets are really very small markets and, inevitably, what is emerging is the need for one regional market.” Sir Neville said it was not for regulators like the Securities Commission to take a lead role in the establishment of a regional stock exchange.“The role of the regulators is to approve the arrangements that are agreed on by the various stock exchanges; Government has a supportive and facilitating role . . . but it is not something that the regulators can enforce. We cannot take a lead role. It is for the national stock exchanges to take the lead in this,” he contended.Douglas Orane, executive chairman of Jamaican conglomerate GraceKennedy, has also called for the establishment of the regional exchange, as he announced that company’s imminent delisting from the Barbados Stock Exchange at month-end due low levels of trading. (GE)