Hans Sicat has just received his third term mandate as president of the Philippine Stock Exchange. His plan now is to introduce new products in the next twelve months in order to boost trading in this emerging market.
In a briefing with reporters after the annual shareholder meeting of the company, Sicat said, "The goalpost for us now will be really how many products we can start adding to the exchange." He says the next twelve months would be critical for the introduction of new products such as exchange traded funds and futures into the new burgeoning bourse.
There is also talk of a merger with the clearing house for bonds in the country, nameky the Philippine Dealing and Exchange Corp. On this he said, "If we have a choice, we'd rather do it sooner rather than later and hopefully this year as opposed to two years from now."
With the expansion of the available investment products, it is hoped that investor interest would be spurred for bourse that is on its fifth consecutive year of growth. The Philippine Stock Exchange Index has grown by 25% this year alone and the foreign net purchases in the past four years has grown from US$420 million in 2009 to US$2.55 billion in 2012.
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