Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The Indonesian Stock Exchange (BEI) said improvement was recorded in the performance of listed companies in the first quarter of this year.

"Based on recapitulation of the performance of 415 traded companies, their net profit rose 14.7 percent to Rp79.77 trillion in the first quarter of this year from the same period last year," Evaluation Director of BEI Samsul Hidayat said here on Thursday.

The total assets of listed companies by the end of the first quarter of this year increased 11.4 percent to Rp8,850.45 trillion and equity rose 14.5 percent to Rp2,467.036 trillion. Their income grew 6.5 percent to Rp659.32 trillion.

Samsul said, the countrys economic growth of 5.01 percent in the first three months of this year or higher than 4.92 percent growth in the same period last year was one of the factors contributing to improving the performance of the traded companies in the country.

"The expansive economic policy of the government to boost the countrys economic growth gave greater expectation, contributing to more positive performance of the listed companies," he added.

Samsul Hidayat said the improved performance of the traded companies would draw more investors to the stock market. Rising demand would push up the share prices and potentially to result in greater capital gain.

"In addition investors would also earn greater dividend from the profit chalked up by listed companies," he said.

He predicted the performance of listed companies would improve this year compared with in 2016. Last year, listed companies recorded a 30.8 percent increase in net profit to Rp285.40 billion from Rp218.21 billion in the previous year.

He said BEI has served a warning to 74 listed companies which have not submitted their financial reports.(*)

Editor: Heru Purwanto
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