Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday served a show cause notice on Bangladesh Jute and Commodity Exchange to explain why the latter had initiated a move to run a commodity exchange service without the approval of the commission.
The BJCE is a private company which has recently undertaken a project to run commodity exchange, but it did not take permission from the stock market regulator.
The BJCE has been asked to reply within three days.
‘The commission issued a show cause notice to the BJCE on Thursday,’ BSEC executive director Saifur Rahman told New Age.
‘The show cause notice asked the organisation to explain why they started the process to run a commodity exchange without prior permission from the BSEC as allowing an organisation to run a commodity service is exclusively under the BSEC’s jurisdiction,’ Saifur said.
The capital market regulator initiated an investigation to this end on Monday after it had come to know about the issue.
BJCE chief investment officer Rahman Habib had told New Age on Sunday that the exchange would start its business soon.
‘The exchange will conduct the pilot project. We have already got approval from the jute ministry in this regard,’ Habib said.
He said farmers from five districts of the country would be able to sell jute through their agents while Bangladesh Jute Mills Corporation would buy the products from Dhaka online.
Initially the exchange will allow only trading of jute online, not any other products, he said.
‘We have a plan to start a full-fledged commodity exchange after evaluating success of the pilot project and getting approval from proper authority,’ he said.
The BSEC was astonished when it came to know that BJCE was going to launch its business soon as a commodity exchange without taking permission from the commission, a BSEC senior official had told New Age on Monday.
‘Allowing any company or firm to conduct the commodity exchange operation is exclusively under the BSEC’s jurisdiction. But the BSEC knows nothing about it. So far as I know, the commission has received no application seeking permission for commodity exchange operation from any company by that name,’ he said.
-With New Age input
