Not too long ago, I was a keynote speaker in an investment conference where I was asked to speak about how prepared the Philippine stock market was for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) integration.
As I was preparing my speech, I realized that our Congress has already done a lot in this area.
- In 2008, Congress passed a law permanently exempting from the documentary stamp tax the trading of listed shares in the stock market. Definitely, this helped reduce the cost of trading in our stock market, which was relatively much higher compared to its Asean neighbors.
- In the same year, Congress passed the Personal Equity Retirement Account Act (Peraa) that encouraged people to set aside part of their incom…
Read the full article at: http://business.inquirer.net/209252/is-our-capital-market-really-asean-ready