Wardiman asked to help promote stock market

JAKARTA (JP): Capital Market Supervisory Agency (Bapepam) chairman I Putu Gde Ary Suta has asked the Ministry of Education and Culture to help it popularize the capital market throughout the country.

Putu said that due to a lack of knowledge about trading activities, the public was not familiar with the country's capital market despite its rapid progress in recent years.

"In fact, the capital market is a good place for portfolio investment," he said at a meeting with Minister of Education and Culture Wardiman Djojonegoro. "For some people, the capital market is an easy way to make money, much more attractive than bank deposits," he said.

Putu said the number of local investors, both individuals and institutions, were around 500,000, less than 1 percent of the country's total population.

Compared to neighboring countries, the number of stock buyers in Indonesia was quite small, he said. "In Malaysia, for example, the ratio of investors against the total population is 50 percent," Putu said.

Putu said that at present foreign investors still dominated the local stock markets, controlling between 60 percent and 70 percent of the trading activities.

Due to that, he said, Bapepam had urged both the Jakarta and Surabaya Stock exchanges to open capital market information centers in all universities to introduce stock trading activities to the public.

Capital market information centers are present in Medan, North Sumatra; Bandung, West Java; and Semarang in Central Java.

"Bapepam will install some more centers in Kalimantan, Bali, Sulawesi and eastern Indonesia," Putu said. But he said, such approaches were not enough. "Schools and universities should also teach students about the capital market," he added.

Wardiman said that under the current education system, both universities and high schools have ample opportunity to include capital market activities in their curriculums.

Putu also noted that the lack of professional human resources would hinder the development of the capital market in Indonesia.

In order to improve professionalism, the ministry should update the education system to give more strength on applied sciences and technology.

Putu said the Jakarta Stock Exchange has been equipped with modern facilities, including scripless trading and automated trading activities which were not available in the early 1990s. (09)