Back in December 2015, Myanmar, a Southeast Asian nation formerly called Burma, opened a new stock exchange in its main city of Yangon. The Yangon Stock Exchange (YSX) was founded, after a 20-year wait, at a cost of $24 million, by the state-owned Myanmar Economic Bank, Daiwa Securities and Japan Exchange Group, a company that operates the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
The stock exchange began trading on Friday with a single listed company, First Myanmar Investment (FMI), one of Myanmar’s largest companies. FMI is owned by local tycoon Serge Pun who rang the bell on trading at 11 a.m. (04:30 GMT) inside a renovated colonial building that once housed the country’s central bank.
FMI, a financial-services, real-estate and health-care conglomerate didn’t issue any new shares but is moving those that had been traded by dealers in private settings onto the formal exchange. FMI shares rose to 31,000 kyat ($25.70) at the open on Friday, the upper limit for trading for the day after they were listed at 26,000 kyat. A total volume of 112,845 shares changed hands, for a trading value of 3.498 billion kyat ($2.90 million). FMI’s market cap was 727,880 million kyat ($603.55 million).
The establishment of the stock market in Yangon was a pet project of the outgoing, military-linked government when Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, the National League for Democracy (NLD) party, ended half a century of dominance by the military by winning a majority of 70 percent in parliament,. The former president, 82-year old Than Shwe, hoped that this ‘farewell gesture” would strengthen his party’s reputation as the modernizers of Myanmar’s economy after decades of neglect.
Myanma Economic Bank owns 51 percent of the exchange, creating a potential problem if foreign investors should be allowed to invest in the future. The remaining 49% is owned by Daiwa Securities and Japan Exchange Group. For now, only Myanmar citizens can trade.
According to Han Thar Myint, chairman of the NLD’s economic committee, the new government’s agenda on the stock exchange, as well as broader economic policies, is still vague. However, it is likely to be guarded and the companies listed will have to be “well audited, and transparent” or no one will dare invest in the stock exchange. People in Myanmar have very little experience with banking systems, let alone with a stock market.
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