KUALA LUMPUR, July 26 — Bursa Malaysia Bhd is confident of maintaining its strong performance in the second half of 2017, backed by positive charts and data, especially in securities and derivatives trading, said Chief Executive Officer, Datuk Seri Tajuddin Atan.    

For the first six months of this year, Bursa Malaysia recorded a pre-tax profit to RM160.18 million versus RM140.03 million previously. Revenue was at RM285.35 million compared with RM263.65 million for the first half of 2016 amid increased trading activities across all segments.            

"Globally there is strength for recovery in some of the developed markets. We feel the emerging markets will continue to have that momentum (albeit) some form of correction,” he told reporters during the company’s 1H2017 Financial Results Analyst & Media Briefing here today.

Tajuddin said some sectors remained affected, mainly due to lower crude oil prices, but in general, the economy was performing well.

He cited the International Monetary Fund’s upward revision of economic growth forecast for Malaysia this year to 4.8 per cent from 4.5 per cent recently, saying it reflected the first half of the year’s performance.

He foresees the growth revision to encourage more foreign fund inflows into Malaysia and highlighted that as to date, the figure was at RM11.2 billion.

"We are happy to maintain it at this level (RM11.2 billion) at this point of time,” he said.

Asked if the newly launched market Leading Entrepreneur Accelerator Platform (LEAP) would be the exchange’s new revenue generator, Tajuddin explained that it was introduced for the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to develop their businesses and be in the pipeline for listing through the initial public offering (IPO) exercise.

"At this point of time, it is not meant to be a revenue generator. But, we want to provide visibility for them for future potential IPOs,” he said.

Yesterday, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak launched the LEAP market at Invest Malaysia 2017, allowing investors to lend money via the capital market to the SMEs.

Meanwhile, on new IPO issuances in the second half of 2017, Tajuddin said there would be a few more soon, but declined to name the firms.

"The IPO has improved a lot this year as compared with 2016.We are quite comfortable in stating the IPO and secondary listing markets are performing quite well,” he added.

The exchange declared an interim and special dividend of 20 sen per share and 15 sen per share respectively, to be paid on Aug 10 and Aug 23. — Bernama