The South Pacific Stock Exchange says 2018 was an impressive year despite the slow economic activity.

Exchange Business Development Manager Pretesh Prasad says with the General Election and recovery from adverse weather conditions – the SPSE achieved an all-time high market capitalization.

Prasad says the total dollar value of all the companies that are listed on the SPSE rose to $3.07billion last year, which is an increase of 71 percent.

“The increase in market capitalization was on the back of a few factors, one of course was the continuing increases that we are seeing in terms of share prices on the back of great investor demand. The other was that we had a new listing in the form of Kontiki Finance Limited. We also had some of our existing companies quoting additional share on the market as part of its corporate restructure.”

Of the twenty companies listed, thirteen secured high share prices.

There are close to 19, 000 investors on the stock market with 209 new investors that entered the SPSE last year.