JSE looking to Jamaican Diaspora in Canada to grow business

The Jamaica Stock Exchange (JSE) will be targeting Canadian investors, especially those from the diaspora, to invest in companies listed on the exchange.    

Marlene Street Forrest, General Manager of the JSE announced on Thursday that the opportunity arose from the fact that the JSE was recently approved by Canada's Finance Minister, Joe Oliver, as a designated stock exchange.

"What it means is that persons in the Diaspora purchasing equities on our market, the gain on those will not be subject to tax," she explained.

Accordingly, she said, the Jamaican exchange "will try to make inroads into that particular achievement so as to continue to grow the market."

 

 

Street Forrest also announced that the JSE is expecting as much as six new listings on the Junior Market this year. Those will follow five listings last year.

    
Since the government announced that it will change the incentive programme given to the Junior Market to reflect only five years of  no corporate income tax, companies have been shying away from listing.

    
That incentive will be given to companies which list during the period 2014 to 2016.

    
The Stock Exchange said its forecast of  the number of  companies to list this year also includes an expectation that they will be taking advantage of the opportunity to list before the incentives are changed.

    
Companies which listed on the Junior Market before 2014 received the first five years after listing free of  corporate income tax while paying only 50 per cent of  the applicable income tax for the next five years.