Finance Minister reviews state of capital markets with Sebi board

New Delhi: In his first post-Budget meeting with Sebi's board, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on March 22 reviewed the state of economy and the markets and discussed capacity building and other infrastructure needs for merger of commodities regulator FMC with the capital markets watchdog.

After addressing the board members of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), Jaitley said he also discussed various issues confronting the regulator, its functioning vis-a-vis new proposals in the Budget and the roadmap ahead. When asked about the merger of Forward Markets Commission (FMC) with Sebi, proposed by him in the Budget, Jaitley said this was also an issue of the discussion.

"They (Sebi) talked about capacity building at Sebi, both in terms of ability to acquaint with the subjects and other infrastructure requirements," the Finance Minister said after his customary post-Budget address to Sebi board. Those present included Minister of State for Finance Jayant Sinha, Sebi Chairman U K Sinha and members of Sebi board. On the proposal to set up India's first International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) in Gujarat's GIFT City, Jaitley said the regulators are making a proposal in this regard.

Sebi, along with RBI, are likely to soon announce final guidelines for the IFSC regime. "The convention is that I meet the Sebi board this time of the year. This is also the time to review the state of economy and the state of capital markets, issues which are confronting Sebi, their functioning vis-a-vis new proposals in the Budget and how we see the roadmap in coming months. "These are subjects on which Sebi gave us a presentation and on basis of that we had interaction," Jaitley said.