Chief Executive Officer's Message

3. Strengthening Liquidity

Bursa Malaysia has also identified several initiatives, aimed at strengthening liquidity, which include the following:

a. Market Awareness and Education

Education is a key element of creating interest in our securities and derivatives markets, especially amongst younger investors. With the aim of developing retail participation, various programmes were conducted during the year, often with the involvement of market participants. There was a focus on both the domestic and foreign retail segment, with the ultimate objective of increasing awareness of the available investment opportunities.

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We place high importance on institutional investor participation in our market. To promote the capital market, we have taken part in a number of international forums and conferences, traveling to destinations such as London, New York, Hong Kong, Mumbai, Dubai and Singapore. Locally, we organized the annual Invest Malaysia Conference in March and the MICM Conference in June. Our aim was to spotlight Malaysia as an investment and capital raising destination, address issues that may impede our market's attractiveness as well as promote our products and services.

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b. Revised Clearing Fee

Another initiative to improve liquidity was the revision of our securities clearing fee from 0.04% (with RM500 cap) to 0.03% (with RM1,000 cap) per contract. The revised fee took effect from 1 January 2008 and strengthened our competitiveness for retail investors.