Shangri La Hotel, Makati City
03 December 2012 

President Benigno S. Aquino III lauded the achievements and record-breaking performance of the Philippine Stock Exchange in the past two and half years during the thanksgiving dinner of the 20th anniversary of its unification as a single entity at Shangri-la Hotel in Makati City.

In his keynote speech, President Aquino congratulated PSE for recording all-time highs and continuing to surge ahead, with an average of daily turnover of 7.61 billion pesos as of July 2012. This reflects the increased and continued confidence of investors in the country.

While the government has instituted reforms to attract prospective investors, he cited PSE’s initiatives to further improve its operations such as extending trading hours and launching the PSE Trade, which will open up direct access to stock exchange and speed up trade execution.

“The way things are going now, there is no reason not to believe that the stock exchange will continue to perform well and that we will be able to realize our dream of breaking the 6,000 index, perhaps in the next 28 days,” he said.

“Justice, fairness and inclusiveness are the core principles of my administration, and I am glad to see the PSE implementing measures founded on the same principles, to uphold the integrity of operations in your sector,” he added.

The President kicked off the celebration with the traditional ringing of the bell and led the ceremony for the first ever PSE Bell Awards for Corporate Governance. The awards under PSE’s listed companies went to Manila Water Co. Inc., SM Prime Holdings Inc., Globe Telecom Inc., China Banking Corp. and Ayala Land Corp. For trading participants, the awardees include Macquarie Securities Inc., COL Financial Group Inc., Credit Lyonnais Securities Asia (CLSA) Philippines, Armstrong Securities Inc., Tri-State Securities Inc. and PCIB Securities Inc.

The PSE was formed from the consolidation of the country’s two former stock exchanges: Manila Stock Exchange, created on August 8, 1927, in Binondo, Manila, and Makati Stock Exchange, established on May 27, 1963, in Makati.

In 2011, PSE ranked as the top performing broad equity market index among the 55 members of the World Federation of Exchanges.