President to open conference on capital market activities

JAKARTA (JP): President Soeharto is scheduled to officially open an international conference on capital market activities at the Jakarta Hilton Convention Center here next week.

Speakers will include Minister of Finance Mar'ie Muhammad, Bank Indonesia (central bank) Governor Soedradjad Djiwandono, Merton H. Miller, the 1990 Nobel Laureate, and Mitsuo Sato, the president of the Manila-based Asian Development Bank (ADB).

Hasan Zein Mahmud, president of the Jakarta Stock Exchange (JSX), said here yesterday that around 2,000 foreign and local businessmen are expected to attend the conference to be held on July 6-8.

Participants will include chief executives of major Asian stock exchanges and representatives of the world's major securities and investment fund companies.

"The opening ceremony will be held on Thursday on the second day of the conference," he said.

An exhibition and a number of other capital-market related activities also will be held during the three-day conference, which is sponsored by the Capital Market Supervisory Agency (Bapepam), the JSX, the Jakarta office of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and PACAP Research Center at the University of Rhode Island.

Promotion

Hasan said the conference, the largest capital market gathering ever held in the country, will provide additional momentum for promoting the country's capital market to the world.

The conference, which has the development of Indonesia's securities industry infrastructure as its theme, will discuss automation of securities trading, rating agencies, the development of Asian stock exchanges, the over-the-counter market, internationalization and market integration in Asian equity markets.

Other speakers will include Bapepam Chairman Bacelius Ruru and Richard W. Roll, a professor of insurance and finance at the University of California.

Hasan said the conference provides an integrated forum for academics and the securities industry.

"A balanced mix of academic and practitioner sessions will provide a stimulating forum for all participants," he said.

The exhibition, which will be held in tandem with the conference, will be open to the public, he said, adding that visitors can get important information about the stock trading activities from the stock exchange "clinic." (hen)