'Govt should remove artificial barriers for thriving bond mkt'

Government should remove artificial barriers to create liquidity in the bond market, Kotak Mahindra AMC managing director Nilesh Shah said today.
"It is always better to have something than nothing," Shah said.
Shah also said that there were high chances of rate cut of a minimum of 25 basis points by the RBI and another 25 basis points over the next one year.
"Rate cut can happen anytime and not necessarily in the forthcoming monetary policy and it could begin with 25 basis points," Shah said.
The Government had announced a slew of steps including a complete information repository for corporate bonds, covering both primary and secondary market segments, which would be developed jointly by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and Sebi.

Further, a framework for an electronic platform for repo market in corporate bonds would be developed by RBI.

The Budget also proposed that RBI would issue guidelines to encourage large borrowers to access a certain portion of their financing needs through market mechanism instead of the banks.
Investment basket of foreign portfolio investors would be expanded to include unlisted debt securities and pass through securities issued by securitisation SPVs (Special Purpose Vehicles).
The enactment of Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code would provide a major boost to the development of the corporate bond market, the Union Finance Minister expected.
"The Government should remove artificial barriers to create liquidity in the bond market," Shah said.

Shah did not see any wrong in tax proposals in the EPF contribution and said one cannot compare with most under-developed African countries.
Kotak AMC in January-December 2015 grew by 40 per cent in terms of assets to Rs 58,500 crore, despite returns from the market not being healthy. In offshore funds it manages USD 2 billion.
Shah said things could be to be better in 2016, but declined to predict on numbers.