Business View Caribbean | April 2019

41 BUSINESS VIEW CARIBBEAN APRIL 2019 the company. That ensures the maturity of the market and allows us to lead by example in terms of transparency and to bring more confidence in the market.” BVC: How does the JSE inspire an interest in the stock market? Street Forrest: “Looking at the necessity for good governance, and how we can improve and attract listed companies who want to do well, we instituted the JSE Best Practices Awards. The awards look at how companies react to market changes with information on their website; how quickly they submit their annual report, based on our requirements, and financial statements, etc. It encourages our listed companies and member dealers to concentrate heavily on best practices. Also last year, we launched our Corporate Governance Index. While this is not yet published to the general public, it is a measurement where we look at different aspects of corporate governance for our listed companies and apply a rating. The companies are given their scores in terms of corporate governance, along with feedback on areas of weakness that they can fix. “To include students, we have instituted the stock market games in over 80 high schools in Jamaica. That is on our local reach. For our global footprint, we have recently been approved as a designated Exchange for Canada and we are part of the Canadian Securities Depository. Our focus is in encouraging persons within other countries to invest in stocks in our market, and, by the designation, it allows persons buying stocks in the main market of the Exchange to put it in their 401K or savings plan for tax purposes. We have also just been approved by the CSD as participants, with the intention to encourage persons to cross-release their securities on our market.” BVC: How many companies are currently listed? Street Forrest: “We have 77 companies comprising 107 securities in all, which comprises the main, the junior, the USD, and the bond market. On the main market, we have 39 companies comprising JAMA I CA STOCK EXCHANGE