Malaysian Capital Market To Be Well-Established, Developed By 2050

By Zairina Zainudin KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 23 (Bernama) -- Bursa Malaysia Bhd Chief Executive Officer, Tajuddin Atan, hopes the Malaysian capital market will be well-established and developed by 2050, with greater financial literacy especially among the youth community. "My aspiration, by 2050, (is for) Malaysia to be a well-established, developed market and a regional marketplace that provides opportunities for companies and investors to access capital and investments easily and efficiently," he told Bernama. Tajuddin was asked on his aspiration for the National Transformation 2050 (TN50) vision. TN50, which was mooted by Prime Minister Najib Razak, is a futuristic policy to chart the country's direction for the next 30 years after 2020. Tajuddin believed that the TN50 "is a splendid idea". Referring to Najib's dialogue session with youths on TN50 held last week, he said it was not only a good platform to give the millennials the opportunity to share their input and voice their opinions, but was also a great way for them to embrace and own these programmes. "I think execution will be easier and more effective," he said. Tajuddin also hoped all Malaysians, especially the youths, would become an investing society that moved beyond basic savings to wealth creation. "The culture of savings and capital preservation should be complemented with financial and investing knowledge and savviness as these are the critical building blocks in powering the engine of growth in any society," he said. In this day and age, Tajuddin said financial and investment knowledge had become the basic necessity for everyone. Given the country's demographic dividend of having a young population with about 45 per cent of Malaysians below the age of 25, one of the most critical levers was education, he said. "We should consider incorporating financial and investment education into our education syllabus for the primary, secondary and tertiary levels in a formal and structured manner. "This has long been a practice in many developed nations, such as Japan and the United States," he added. He said Bursa Malaysia was taking a long-term commitment in promoting financial and investment knowledge to effect generational changes. An initiative Bursa Malaysia has undertaken to support this commitment is to make available a virtual one-stop marketplace designed for millennials called Bursamarketplace.com. This is done to democratise access to financial information and investment knowledge. Since its launch in 2014, Bursamarketplace.com has to-date attracted more than one million visitors out of which more than 55 per cent are below the age of 35. Formerly known as Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange, Bursa Malaysia is the primary securities exchange in Malaysia. --BERNAMA