GMA wants bigger role for GFIs in bourse dev’t

President Arroyo wants government financial institutions to assume a bigger role in promoting investments in the stock market as a way to boost trading liquidity and attract more investors.

The Chief Executive paid a surprise visit to the trading floor of the stock exchange headquarters in Makati Wednesday. The visit was taken positively by market players, saying this should augur well for the stock market.

Philippine Stock Exchange president Francis Lim said he was assured by Mrs. Arroyo that the government would do its best to promote more investments in the equities market, which still pales in comparison with Asian neighbors despite its improvement in recent years.

Lim said the President also welcomes the bourse’s proposal to include capital market, securities and investments in the business curricula of colleges and universities in the country.

The idea was first floated by the PSE, the Association of Securities Analysts of the Philippines (ASAP), the Capital Market Institute of the Philippines and the Philippine Association of Collegiate Schools of Business (PACSB), an umbrella organization made up of 250 schools all over the country.

Under the plan, colleges and universities in the country will offer specific courses and stand-alone subjects on the dynamics of the financial and capital markets, including the stock market, instead of offering these subjects as mere electives or as a practicum.

The subjects will include pointers on how to invest in the stock market and how to understand the characteristics of various stock and capital market instruments.

They will also focus on rules governing the financial and capital markets and the interplay between these markets and various institutions that support them, including banks, investment houses and brokerage firms.

Many colleges and universities in the country, even those that offer business courses, have yet to include these specific subjects in their curricula.

Lim said this would improve not only the competency of prospective capital market practitioners but also would increase investment awareness and develop an investment-conscious culture among the Filipinos, and in the process, contribute to the country‚s economic development.

Lim noted that only less than one percent of the Philippine population actively invests in the stock market.

"There is strong perception that the stock market is only for the chosen few and that only "big" investors can gain from investing in the market.

There is therefore a pressing and imperative need to dispel this notion, assist in improving the stock market’s image as well as promote investing in the market through an intensive education program," Lim earlier said.

"We believe that in order to lure our young generation to get into the capital market and cultivate them as skilled, competent and responsible market practitioners, we should immerse students deeper into the subject by making it a stand-alone subject in the college curricula," he added.