PSE brokers network with ASEAN traders for live cross-border trade

Securities brokers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), 62 of them, recently met in Phuket, Thailand and some of them are already striking up direct links with their Filipino counterparts. “We gained valuable insights from the talks by various bourses, but the most interesting part of it all is meeting up with at least nine brokers interested in the Philippines, with two to three of them having immediate business potential," Said Gonzalo Ordoñez, president of First Metro Securities Brokerage Corp., in a statement Tuesday. Ordoñez was part of the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) delegation of 10 trading participants during the Phuket meeting. “We should move now while there is strong interest in our market," he stressed. “If we don’t move forward with the times, we will again regress to the ice ages," according to Philip Huang, president & CEO of Nieves Sanchez, Inc. PSE president and CEO Hans B. Sicat said the brokers’ networking session “is another milestone for the ASEAN link coming shortly after its major accomplishment last June 2011 of appointing a technology provider to set up a system for the trading link between the bourses." “The ASEAN link ultimately aims to promote the growth of the ASEAN capital market by ushering ASEAN investment opportunities to more people," Sicat said. Among the PSE trading participants at the Phuket session were ATR Kim Eng Securities, Inc. CitisecOnline.com Inc., F. Yap Securities, Golden Tower Securities & Holdings Inc., and I. Ackerman & Company Inc. RCBC Securities, Inc., Regina Capital Development Corp., and Unicapital Securities, Inc. were also in the networking sessions. — ELR/VS, GMA News