"We want to develop an international trading floor to attract international listings, to be taken seriously, [hence] we must have world-class standards by which we regulate our market," said BSE general manager Marlon Yarde last Wednesday.

He was speaking at the opening of a Directors' Certification Programme hosted by the BSE and Cave Hill School of Business at Hilton Barbados, where additional guidelines governing listed companies were introduced to local directors sitting on company boards.

In fact, Dr Richard Leblanc, a Canadian specialist in corporate governance, assisted the BSE with drafting the proposed Corporate Governance: Recommendations for Listed Companies on the Barbados Stock Exchange Inc. and presented it at the forum.

Yarde said the goals of the recommendations were to harmonise the practices of listed companies, improve the transparency of their operations, and provide a basis for consistency of information provided to shareholders among other things.

Speaking to BARBADOS BUSINESS AUTHORITY after the session, Yarde said the recommendations were expected to be approved by BSE's board of directors next month and would then be up for comments by market actors such as issuers and investors.

Next, he explained, the recommendations with comments would be sent to the Securities Commission here for adoption and published in the marketplace by January 2009. (SR)