Friday, October 19, 2007

NEW YORK: Finance Minister P. Chidambaram on Thursday assured foreign institutional investors that the market regulator, Securities and Exchange Board of India, would hear their views before deciding on Participatory Notes by October 25, a move aimed at calming the panic-stricken investors.   At the same time, he asked investors to be cautious over motivated rumours like the one on Prime Minister’s resignation on Thursday that pulled down the market, saying that all regulations were in place in the ‘vibrant’ Indian market. Facing a barrage of questions on SEBI’s proposals on Offshore Derivative Instruments (ODIs) such as Participatory Notes (PNs) to check anonymous funds, he said there was a need to moderate the flow of funds into stock markets in view of investors looking for destinations for parking proceeds from liquidation of securities in their own countries.   “Foreign investors are liquidating their holdings of securities in their countries and putting that money elsewhere. It has therefore become necessary to take some measures to moderate the flow of funds into India,” he said at the annual investors meeting organised by ICICI Securities.   However, there was no intention to keep out ‘certain kinds of’ funds from the bourses, the Finance Minister said assuaging fears of foreign investors spooked by SEBI’s proposal to put some checks on ODIs.   Dubbing SEBI’s proposals as a well-thought of move, he said: “We expected criticism... but in short such measures are unavoidable.”

More News.... Source:  PTI