Chandigarh, Nov 26 (IANS) India’s market regulator will to announce the guidelines and procedures in December for setting up of smaller exchanges that will cater to small and medium enterprises, it announced here Wednesday. “In the initial phase, three to four licences will be provided to companies who have net worth income of Rs.100 crore (Rs.1 billion),” T.C. Nair, whole time director at the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) said at a function organised by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry.

Nair said the Bombay Stock Exchange and National Stock Exchange have shown interest in setting up the exchanges that will aim at mobilising resources from the public on the lines of the Alternate Investment Market (AIM) in London.

The stock exchanges will be set up as separate corporate entities, which will subsequently convert itself into a demutualised entity within a specified period from the date of commencement of operations.

Demutualisation refers to changing a mutual or cooperative association into a public company by converting the interest of members into shareholdings, which can be traded on bourses.

The exchange for SMEs will be different from existing stock exchanges in terms of companies raising capital and investors investing money in such companies, and have nationwide trading terminals and online screen-based trading.

Referring to the global meltdown, Nair said small and medium enterprises, whose contribution has been as high as 47 percent to the manufacturing sector and 8 percent to economic growth, faced the greatest threat.

Therefore, there is a urgent need to develop a mechanism to extend a special package to this sector to enable them to meet export requirements, help retain jobs and take measures to upgrade technologies.