The Rwanda Stock Exchange (RSE) is gearing towards an automated trading platform to attract more foreign companies and boost activity on the nascent bourse.The move will pave way for electronic trading of shares and bonds listed on the RSE, phasing out the open (manual) trading system, which capital market regulator, Capital Markets Authority (CMA), says is unappealing to foreign companies and investors.  CMA says the initiative would attract companies that are listed on regional stock exchanges to trade their shares in Rwanda through cross listing. "You have companies in the region or other stock exchanges outside Rwanda that would have their shares listed in our domestic stock exchange. This is important because it creates that avenue through which they can be able to attract savings into the economy,” Robert Mathu, the Executive Director of CMA said on Tuesday.He was appearing before the Chamber of Deputies’ Committee on Budget and National Patrimony, to defend the Rwf1.5 billion allocated to CMA in the proposed budget for the fiscal year 2012/13.  Mathu said "a very substantial” amount of the CMA budget in the next fiscal year, which begins on July 1, would be used to automate trading activities aimed at accelerating the speed at which transactions are processed on the domestic stock exchange. CMA also seeks to increase spending on capacity building.The Rwanda Stock Exchange is the only bourse in the East African Community (EAC) which is not automated.  The Uganda Securities Exchange, Dar es Slaam Stock Exchange (DSE) and Nairobi Stock Exchange (NSE) have all embraced electronic trading platforms. Burundi is yet to set up a stock exchange.  Only two domestic companies, Bralirwa and Bank of Kigali are listed on the RSE while the market also attracted two cross listings from Kenya, Nation Media Group and Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB)."The implication is that if someone is buying shares here, it is going to take you much longer to get ownership in your name because the shares here are traded physically. In Nairobi, they are in an electronic format,” Mathu said.According to Mathu, there are many (foreign) investors who would be willing to transact in the listed shares. CMA in collaboration with the central bank and the central depository in Nairobi implemented a project that allows electronic holding of shares as opposed to holding of a paper certificate as proof of owning shares in the company. "We have a central depository system which is handling that but so far, only Bralirwa and BK shares are held electronically,” Mathu said.But trading is still done manually.He added that trading is done physically in the country because the electronic system is not yet interconnected to the rest of the region."That should be a priority because once they are interconnected; we will start seeing activity here.”