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Govt revamps stock investors today

Sarwar A Chowdhury and Gazi Towhid Ahmed
The government will come up with some positive measures today to bolster investors' confidence and bring back normalcy in the stockmarket, a senior official of the Securities and Exchange Commission said yesterday.
Finance Minister AMA Muhith assured the SEC that the government will declare some motivational steps, he said.
Last evening, the finance minister called an emergency meeting with the securities regulator and formed an advisory council, led by him, to find out ways to strengthen the market and to ensure proper practice of securities rules.
In line with the outcomes of the meeting, the National Board of Revenue will issue a circular today to reduce tax at source on brokerage commission by half to 0.05 percent. The government doubled the ratio to 0.1 percent this fiscal year.
The NBR will also allow the investment of undisclosed money in stocks without questioning its sources, said the official after the SEC meeting with the finance minister.
Besides, the tax administrator will withdraw the 10 percent tax on mutual funds also imposed from this fiscal year, he added.
The SEC official, asking not to be named, said the Bangladesh Bank may also call upon commercial banks to increase their investment in the stockmarket.
Meanwhile, angry investors started a massive protest and a fast-unto-death programme in front of the Dhaka Stock Exchange yesterday amid a fall in prices.
The protest started in the morning and continued to get bigger in the evening as many investors were joining the protestors in the Motijheel business hub, after the benchmark general index of the premier bourse plum- meted by 181.31 points or 3.26 percent, triggered by panic sales.
The key index ended the session at 5,387.05 points.
"We can't rely on the regulator's initiatives that it promised in the last few days to stabilise the market," said a DSE investor at noon.
Mizanur Rashid, convener of Bangladesh Capital Market Investors' Unity Council, said last night they will continue the fast-unto-death programme until the government comes up with any concrete measure.
The small investors earlier said banks and financial institutions should reinvest their money in the market as they made hefty profits from the capital market last year.
They also demanded increasing the investment ceiling of commercial banks to 15 percent of their liability instead of the existing 10 percent.
However, activities declined at the DSE where turnover, volume and trade were down by 29.14 percent 25.89 percent and 18.7 percent respectively.
A total of 83,165 trades were executed yesterday generating a turnover of Tk 258 crore with 3.6 crore shares being traded.