Head of Group Business Development, Dr. Zaha Rina Zahari said, “For 2004, we are expecting to grow at a stronger double-digit rate. In 2003, we hit 2 million contracts with a 55% year-on-year growth, this was an encouraging growth as compared to the previous years.”
Dr. Zaha Rina was speaking at the International Options Markets Association (IOMA)/ International Options Clearing Association (IOCA) Annual Conference hosted by Osaka Securities Exchange from 5 – 8 May 2004.
“The encouraging performance in the last two years augurs well for 2004 and most products have shown marked increase in volumes and open positions. In 2004, the exchange introduced Palm Kernel Oil Futures (FPKO) contracts in the first quarter, lifting its total number of products to eight,” she said.
“In 2003, Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Berhad, launched the 3-year and 10-year Malaysian Government Securities (MGS) bond futures contracts to complement its existing 5–year MGS Futures contracts.
“The market demography shows that the domestic retail market has continued to support the derivatives market in Malaysia - 43% of our equity derivatives market turnover was contributed by domestic retail in 2004. Foreign institutional investors accounted for 39% of equity derivatives market - an increase of over 8%.
“For commodity derivatives, in the year 2003, domestic retail market accounted for 26% of volume, followed by domestic institution at 18% and foreign institutions at 17%.
“As for our financial derivatives contracts, domestic institutions accounted for 92% of the volume in 2003.”
“Whilst contributing to the breadth and depth of the derivatives market, we will continue to focus on building market liquidity to meet the needs of our investors,” Dr. Zaha Rina added.
In her presentation, Dr. Zaha Rina also noted the following of the Asia exchanges’:
- Trading volume is growing steadily, due to the increased awareness in product knowledge of derivatives, positive changes in regulations and increasing activity in the underlying market.
- Derivative products in Asia are still dominated by commodity derivatives. However more innovative products are being introduced to meet market demand such as metal derivatives, credit derivatives and energy derivatives.
- Will continue to have strategic alliances with others in the region as well as Europe and America to create a global market place to grow and broaden the exchanges’ clientele base, diversify its product range and provide additional value-added services to investors across a broader geographical area.
- Rapid development and strong demand for derivatives market instruments in China is rising.
- Emergence of new derivative exchanges for e.g. in Thailand is expected to be operational in mid-2005.
