Ahmedabad, Jan 25 (IANS) The Ahmedabad Stock Exchange (ASE) – the second oldest bourse in India – is getting ready to play a significant role, once a financial hub being built on the lines of similar hubs in Shanghai and Paris gets going on the outskirts of this city.
Indicating this here, Mukesh Patel, the new chairman of ASE, told IANS that discussions within the exchange’s board of directors have begun to configure a new role, which would put the exchange in the limelight again.
Patel said while he could not go into any detail on the restructuring of ASE now, he could foresee the exchange playing an important role when the Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT)) becomes functional.
The project is being planned to be at or above par with globally benchmarked financial centres such as Shinjuku (Tokyo), Lujiazui (Shanghai), La Defense (Paris) and Dockyards (London).
The Gujarat government has conceived GIFT as a platform that could launch the state as a financial services hub.
GIFT, whose construction is to begin in March this year, will have a signature 80-storey, 400 metre “Diamond Tower”, as well as an artificial island, integrated mass transit and dedicated expressways, residential townships, and dedicated power supply on 500 acres.
It will have over 75 million sq ft of office space.
The project is being developed by the Gujarat Finance City Development Co Ltd, a 50:50 joint venture between the Gujarat government and Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Ltd (IL&FS) as a public-private partnership, will employ 400,000 people and house 50,000 residents.
East China Architectural Design and Research Institute (ECADI), which is responsible for planning much of Shanghai, is designing the tech city.
Patel pointed out that many exchanges abroad, especially the London Stock Exchange, were now going global and seeking tie-ups with financial institutions worldwide in order to get a pie of the global financial services business that is growing by leaps and bounds.
“We are also exploring whether we can put ASE on a similar track. It may be possible to have tie-ups both nationally and globally.”
The ASE, which like all other exchanges in the country functioned like an “association of stock traders”, lost its sheen following market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India’s (SEBI) corporatisation and demutualisation scheme in 2005.
Thus, a complementary role for ASE as part of GIFT operations and tie-ups with other institutions will certainly “go a long way in acquiring a new brand and image makeover for the exchange”, Patel said.
With Gujarat poised to get more and more foreign investment, there was need for a financial services organisation with whom foreign investors could get connected and do business with the state.
“We would like to build ASE to perform this all-important role,” Patel said.