January 14, 2006	Saturday	Zilhaj 13, 1426

TOKYO, Jan 13: The Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) will increase its daily trading capacity by about 70 per cent by early June to cope with volumes that have more than doubled over the past year, a report said Friday.

The bourse plans to upgrade its capacity to around 15 million transactions a day with an investment of about one billion yen (8.7 million dollars), the Nihon Keizai business daily said.

However, the TSE said that no firm plan had been adopted and noted that it had already upgraded its capacity just this week to nine million transactions from 7.5 million previously.

“We are considering upgrading the transaction capacity as the number of transactions has been increasing but the details are not yet decided,” said a spokesman at the exchange operator.

Trading volumes on the Tokyo exchange have risen to record levels on a wave of interest by foreign investors and individuals dealing over the Internet.

The average number of transactions a day ran at about 5.4 million in December.

The bourse needs to keep its capacity about 40 to 50 per cent above actual volumes to prevent system problems, the report noted.

Concern about the exchange’s system has grown since the bourse suffered its worst-ever system crash in November which paralyzed Asia’s largest bourse.

The bourse’s chief executive, Takuo Tsurushima, quit in December to take the blame for the chaos on the market seen last month after a securities firm was unable to stop a massive sell order caused by the slip of a trader’s finger.—AFP