The total market value of companies listed on the Singapore Exchange (SGX) has jumped 38.1 percent to 604.8 billion Singapore dollars (about 393 billion U.S. dollars) in 2006.

The key factors include a strong economy and a resurgent property market in the year, analysts told local English daily The Straits Times published on Saturday.

The shares prices in Singapore ended the year by closing on Friday at another record high with the benchmark Straits Times Index (STI) rising 22.3 points to end at 2985.8 points.

The STI component stocks accounted for almost half the increase in total market capitalization. Of the 167 billion Singapore dollars (about 108 billion U.S. dollars) gain in overall market capitalization, 77.7 billion Singapore dollars (about 50.5 billion U.S. dollars) came from STI stocks, according to the newspaper.

Companies with a market value of more than 1 billion Singapore dollars (about 650 million U.S. dollars) rose to 97 members, up by 22 from 2005, the report said.

The biggest companies in terms of market value were Telco giant SingTel, followed by local banks of DBS Group Holdings, United Overseas Bank and OCBC Bank, and the fifth Jardine Strategic.

New listed companies also helped to lift the overall market capitalization. The amount raised by initial public offerings ( IPOs) was 7.6 billion Singapore dollars (about 4.9 billion U.S. dollars), up 24.6 percent from last year.

And 332 companies of the 500 biggest market capitalization reported a higher market value than the previous corresponding period. Only 103 reported a lower market value, the report said.

Source: Xinhua