Kolkata, Sep 24 (IANS): Under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime, the number of companies listed in BSE are expected to go up to more than 10,000 in the next ten years from the present 5,500 companies, a stock exchange official said on Friday.

"GST is an important framework. Today, there are 5,500 companies listed in the BSE. I would not be surprised in the next ten years, if more than 10,000 companies are listed in the BSE," said stock exchange's Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Ashish Kumar Chauhan.

He said the single tax regime would be beneficial for small entities and companies which operate across many states. It will allow many young companies to grow up very fast and bring more transparency in the system.

"Many companies at present have to fulfil regulations which are local. Under GST, their costs are expected to reduce and their profitability might go up. They will find it easy to operate across India," Chauhan said at an event organised by MCC Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Speaking on investments in the stock exchange, he said, "Investments have to increase and speculations have to reduce. Presently, securities transaction tax is higher on equity. There should be less tax on investment activities and more taxes on speculative activities."

Chauhan said raising funds through corporate bonds by private sector has suddenly surged after banks became cautious on lending to large corporates following a rise in bad loans in the banking sector.

"We had been talking about corporate bond market not doing well in our country. Suddenly, we see that corporate bonds are doing well in the capital market. We have recently launched BSE-BOND platform. Over Rs 40,000 crore has been raised through corporate bonds in the last 45 days," he said.

The country's key exchanges BSE and NSE (National Stock Exchange) launched electronic book mechanism platforms for issuance of debt securities on private placement basis in July.