The catalytic activities of the complexes of Pd, Ru, Co and Rh with PPh 3 , AsPh 3 and SbPh 3 ligands have been investigated for the hydroformylation of ethylene in benzene as solvent. All the studied metal complexes, other than that of Rh, with AsPh 3 ligand were found to show better hydroformylation catalytic activity than those of their corresponding complexes with PPh 3 and SbPh 3 ligands.