"The debt market in the country has a large potential to grow. I expect it to grow at least to the size of equity markets within the next three to five years. This would create opportunities for primary dealers to broaden their activities", Mr Kaul said.In 1999-2000, turnover in the equity market stood at Rs 20,67,031 crore.

Since economic liberalisation, trading volumes in the G-Secs market has been increasing steadily. In the pre-liberalisation era, the market used to see G-Sec trades in the meagre range of Rs 25,000-30,000 crore.

Trade-volumes have increased to Rs 4,56,515 crore in 1999-2000, up from Rs 1,87,531 crore in 1998-1999.

Mr Kaul is of the opinion that the introduction of new products like deep-discount bonds, fully or partly convertible debentures, triple-option convertible debentures, PSU bonds of both taxable and tax-free types have given new opportunities to the debt market. New types of securities like zero-coupon bonds and floating-rates capital indexed have been introduced.