SC tasked to spearhead capital market reforms

“We need our capital markets to be dynamic, attractive, and most of all safe and investor friendly,” Anwar said.

KUALA LUMPUR: The Securities Commission (SC) has been tasked by the Finance Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim to spearhead further reforms and advancements to the capital markets moving forward.

Anwar wrote this in the foreword for a book published by the SC titled “Capital Market in Malaysia - Past, Present & Future” that was launched yesterday in conjunction with the SC’s 30th anniversary this year.

“I am entrusting the SC to do its part to further reform and refine Malaysia’s capital markets so that it can get to the next level.

“We need our capital markets to be dynamic, attractive, and most of all safe and investor friendly,” Anwar said.

“I also believe the SC will embrace creative disruption to innovate our markets further. While the SC has a storied first 30 years, I believe the next 30 will be even more memorable and rewarding should it take on the challenge of making the Madani economy a reality.

“To move forward, we have to keep learning from history, lest we be doomed to repeat it,” he added.

Anwar said the Madani economy invariably would require major reforms in the way the country does business and in terms of governance which will ensure the distribution of wealth will be equitable.

The Sultan of Perak, Sultan Nazrin Muizzuddin Shah, launched the book yesterday which provides readers with an insight of the workings of the market and its regulator since 1993.

The book also offers glimpses of evolving global trends that will help shape the Malaysian market for the near future and gives future generations a reference to the past as well.

In his royal address, the Sultan of Perak said, “This book really pays tribute to the power of the team – to the way in which individual minds, voices and talents have come together across the decades, to build the SC into an internationally celebrated regulatory body.”

SC chairman Datuk Seri Awang Adek Hussin said some of the stories published in the book have not been told before.

“Interviewing the past chairpersons was not just a way of making history come alive.

“It was at the same time, my way of honouring and acknowledging their contributions, the bricks they put in place to make the SC what it is today.

“When I assumed this position, I realised very quickly that at the SC, the buck stops with the chairman,” he said.

“So I’m sure that my predecessors would have a wealth of knowledge, insights and many interesting stories to tell.

“After all, the past three decades have been nothing, if not tumultuous, from a capital market perspective,” Awang Adek added.

The SC said the 420-page book is written by journalist Jennifer Jacobs and was based on fresh interviews and conversations with all the former and current SC chairpersons, past and current SC senior management, industry experts, scholars, other regulators, and key stakeholders.