MYANMAR’S Yangon Stock Exchange is making last-minute preparations for foreign investors who will be allowed to trade shares on the bourse from next Friday.

Procedures started last week for foreign investors to open securities accounts so they can start trading on the first stock exchange in the Southeast Asian country, which was set up in 2015 with the support of Japanese companies.

At present, only five companies are listed on the YSX bourse, which is operated by a joint venture of the government-affiliated Myanmar Economic Bank, the Daiwa Institute of Research and Japan Exchange Group Inc.

With stock trading now limited to domestic companies or investors, Myanmar’s financial authorities said in July last year they would lift the ban on trading by foreign investors, a move aimed at injecting momentum into the stagnant stock exchange.

On March 6, the Ministry of Planning, Finance and Industry, as well as the Securities and Exchange Commission issued an instruction saying, “The actual start of trading by resident and nonresident foreigners shall be set at March 20.”

However, it is likely that only a small number of shares will be traded by foreigners at first as some listed companies, depending on industry sector, require approval from Myanmar’s supervisory authorities for stock sales.

“We want to hold stocks for the long term and contribute to the Myanmar economy,” said Hideki Matsushita, a Japanese investor who opened a securities account in the name of his firm in Yangon.

The Myanmar authorities urged investors to follow the country’s securities exchange law for daily trading, and securities companies to comply with the country’s anti-money laundering law and counterterrorism law, as part of efforts to ensure a stable and sustained growth of the bourse.

Kyodo News

PHOTO: PHOE KHWAR

Ref; The Global New Light of Myanmar