The Department of Finance (DOF) is studying the amendments to the charters of Land Bank of the Philippines and the Development Bank of the Philippines to prepare them for public listing.
Finance Secretary Ralph Recto said the possible amendments of DBP and LandBank charters, including their possible public listing, would broaden the local capital market.
This initiative aligns with the DOF’s broader strategy to make the Philippine Stock Exchange more accessible to ordinary Filipinos, enabling them to become stakeholders in the nation’s economic growth, according to Recto.
Recto also urged the PSE to collaborate with the government in making the stock market more accessible to ordinary Filipinos. “Wider public access to investment opportunities and a broad-based financial system are key conditions for achieving inclusive growth,” Recto said.
“With the help of the PSE, I look forward to building the Philippine capital market into a platform where more small companies and wage earners become shareholders. That will be a measure of how much we have dispersed our economic activities and how inclusive our growth has been,” he said.
The PSE is the only stock exchange in the country, a self-regulatory organization that provides and ensures a fair, efficient, transparent and orderly market for the buying and selling of securities. It also offers a convenient and efficient venue for raising capital to support the growth of businesses.
Recto lauded the PSE for successfully diversifying the stock market by encouraging ten small companies to list with a total issue size of P29.6 billion.
“All these underscore the remarkable progress our stock exchange has made in democratizing wealth. It is not only benefitting large companies, but is making it possible for all Filipinos to become investors, actively contributing to capital aggregation,” he said.
Recto said the DOF would implement capital market reforms to enhance investor protection, corporate governance, shareholder centrality and broader investor participation.
The DOF is pushing for the passage of its refined proposal on Package 4 of the Comprehensive Tax Reform Program (CTRP), which aims to harmonize and simplify the tax structure on passive income, financial products and its transactions to spur greater capital inflow and economic activity.
The DOF will also pursue the passage of the Capital Market Efficiency Promotion Act which aims to reduce the tax on stock transactions from 0.6 percent to just 0.1 percent of stock value, Recto said.
The agency supports the Capital Market Development Act which will address weaknesses of the current private pension system and in the process vigorously develop a dynamic and diversified domestic capital market.