Press briefing of Cabinet Decision taken on 2017-03-21

The Draft Securities Exchange Act 2017

- The attention of the Government has been focused to introduce a new Act in place of the present Securities and Exchange Commission Act, No.36 of 1987, to meet the challenges faced by the capital market, at present. The draft concept paper has been prepared by taking into consideration the legal concepts and the experiences of other countries like Malaysia, Singapore and Hongkong and further amended based on the recommendations of the experts in the field. Accordingly, the proposal made by Hon. Ranil Wickremasinghe, the Prime Minister in his capacity as the Minister of National Policies and Economic Affairs to draft a new Act named the Securities Exchange Act based on the draft concept paper with the objective of strengthening the independence of the Securities and Exchange Commission to provide the confidence of both the local and foreign investors as a well regulated and orderly share market inter alia making the capital market more attractive as an alternative way to raise capital in the Sri Lankan Economy, was approved by the Cabinet