in the Island's stock market in a bid to increase the liquidity of the market.

BSX Chief operating Officer Greg Wojciechowski outlined the aim after presenting a review of the exchange's record year of trading.

He told The Royal Gazette : "The BSX had a record breaking year in 2000 and we look forward to continuing rapid growth in the new millennium.

"We are looking forward to a positive performance in 2001, and one of our objectives is to encourage locals to invest more in their local stock market with a view to increasing the liquidity in the market.'' And in the year to come the exchange hopes that a new processing system, Global Script, will allow it to process trades more quickly.

Currently the trades are recorded manually and tasks such as recording if the stock owner is Bermudian or not to comply with 60/40 regulations are time consuming. The new system will automatically work out the statistics and ratios.

"Global Script will help make the currently manual process automated and save a considerable amount of time and make the process much more efficient and able to handle more volume,'' Mr. Wojciechowski said.

Increasing local awarenss: BSX Chief Operating Officer Greg Wojciechowski.