July 23, 2003	Wednesday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 22, 1424

TOKYO, July 22: The second half of 2003 will bring a flurry of new listings in Japan as the stock market recovers from a two-decade low hit in April, Masaaki Tsuchida, head of Tokyo Stock Exchange Inc. (TSE), said on Tuesday.

A majority of these initial public offerings (IPOs), which include some “well-known companies,” would apply to list on TSE, he said, adding that Asia’s largest bourse also hoped to attract more individual investors.

Since the end of May the excessive pessimism that had been plaguing the market has dissipated and the Tokyo Stock Exchange escaped the depths which had been struck, the TSE president and chief executive told a news conference.

The exchange’s headline Nikkei-225 average has recovered some 25 per cent from a 20-year low recorded on April 28 as confidence in global equity markets rebounded in the aftermath of the Iraq war and the SARS crisis.

The market has picked-up greatly in the last month and I expect this market vitality to act as a forerunner to an increase in overall economic activity, predicted Tsuchida, a former bureaucrat.

There have been few floatations in Japan during the first six months of the year due to the sluggish market conditions but this is changing as companies gain confidence to explore new ways to generate capital.

I believe there will be a lot more IPOs in the second half of this year, said Tsuchida.

There are a number of unlisted corporations (that want to go public) and these include a number of very well-known companies.

Seiko Epson, a leading ink-jet printer, last month became Japan’s biggest floatation so far this year, while — in another major listing — NEC Electronics, a chipmaking unit of NEC Corp., plans to go public on July 24.

Although TSE faces competition from rival bourses such as the Osaka Stock Exchange and Jasdaq, it has a 96 percent share of all domestic stock exchange trading.—AFP