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Mr Albert Cheng, Managing Director, World Gold Council Far East
Mr Sammy Yip, Vice President, Head of Exchange Traded Funds, State Street Global Advisors
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen:
Good afternoon.
My SGX colleagues and I are pleased to be here with our partners, World Gold Council and State Street Global Advisors, on this happy occasion – the inclusion of streetTRACKS® Gold Shares in the CPF Investment Scheme.
streetTRACKS® Gold Shares has shone since it was listed on SGX about a year ago. It has attracted the attention of investors, including myself, especially since the price of gold has gone up quite significantly. Investors are also seeing gold as an efficient way to diversify their portfolios, as well as an alternative to conventional equity markets.
streetTRACKS® Gold Shares has indeed provided an avenue to invest in gold more efficiently without having to hold physical gold, which is typically associated with high storage and custody costs and, not least, paying GST on its full value. In addition, investors have access to full price transparency and flexibility as they can trade in and out at market prices at any time of the trading day on SGX.
As the first commodity-based Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) listed on SGX, streetTRACKS® Gold Shares has played an important role in broadening the suite of SGX-listed ETFs and building investors’ interest in them. Total trading in our ETFs has more than trebled to US$526 million in the first 10 months of this year, compared to the same period last year. Gold Shares was a significant contributor to this growth as it is the third most actively traded ETF on SGX.
We are committed to working with our partners to further develop our ETF market through continuous investor education and developing various distribution channels. Getting ETFs included in CPFIS is one of the initiatives. I believe that streetTRACKS® Gold Shares are poised for an even brighter future in the long run with its inclusion in CPFIS. Investors now have an additional source of funds to own gold products for long term investment.
We are seeing some positive results in our other initiatives as well, with growing investor recognition of the value of ETFs. I look forward to your continued support in fostering our ETF market. In particular, I would like to thank WGC and SSgA for their efforts in bringing their streetTRACKS® Gold Shares to another milestone in Singapore. I wish them all the best.
