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The port city bourse of the Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE) wants strategic tax exemptions in the upcoming budget to support product diversification in the capital market in Bangladesh.
As an important stakeholder, the CSE held a press conference on Sunday to place their demands ahead of the national budget for FY25.
It said alternative trading boards (ATB) and SME boards should have more listings.
The CSE demanded tax exemptions for at least 2 to 3 years for companies that would list on the ATB and SME boards.
The ATB is an iconic market for unlisted companies, allowing change in the ownership at a very low cost due to the non-availability of the stamp duty and lesser stringent listing requirement. It is a trading based platform, comprising four types of securities -- equity securities, debt securities, open-ended mutual funds and alternative investment funds.
Currently the Dhaka Stock Exchange's ATB has only six listings.
The SME board of the Dhaka Stock Exchange launched to finance small and medium enterprises has only 20 stocks.
The CSE demands tax exemptions to pave the way for equity derivative and commodity derivative.
It also said tax exemptions were necessary on investments in hardware and software installment for the introduction of equity derivative and commodity derivative.
Another demand was a tax waiver for five years on the yet-to-be-launched commodity stock exchange.
The bourse said a 10 per cent tax gap between listed and non-listed companies and 2-3 years' tax free benefits would lure good companies into listing in the stock market.
CSE also requested for omission of double taxation on dividend income, omission of capital gain tax for institutional investors and tax cut on ETF and mutual fund investments to attract more people to the country's capital market.
The press conference was chaired by Mr. Asif Ibrahim, chairman of the CSE.