MY Morning Wrap | Govt Committed to Enabling Fractional Share Trading Before Year-end

Investors parsing the health of the U.S. economy encountered smooth sailing in financial markets in recent months. Last week may have provided a warning shot.

The government is committed to reducing the current board lot size for trading to enable investors to tap into fractional trading on Bursa Malaysia before year-end. Deputy Finance Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Maslan said the initiative will make retail investors' access to blue chip stocks easier and more efficient, thus improving market prospects.“After this, retail investors would not need to buy one lot or 100 units, they can start buying one or two units or RM50 (worth of units), not necessarily thousands of ringgit (worth of shares). There will be more retail investors out there who can afford to buy shares…and I believe this will boost the Malaysian capital market”.

The Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with an Indian trade body to promote the exchange of vegetable oil sector knowhow between the two countries. The MOU with the Indian Vegetable Oil Producers' Association (IVPA) seeks to encourage collaboration between Malaysian and Indian companies in commercial and technical areas, MPOB director-general Datuk Dr Ahmad Parveez Ghulam Kadir told Bernama. It covers areas such as sustainable vegetable oil production and trade, technology transfer and capacity building in palm-oil based industries, and promotion of best practices and quality standards.

The Ministry of Plantation and Commodities (KPK) will propose oil palm replanting grants to the Ministry of Finance (MOF), said Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Fadillah Yusof. Fadillah said the grants were among matters requested by oil palm smallholders as the crops needed replanting.“We will look at the feedback from the smallholders who requested for the replanting grants and insya-Allah, we will take it to the MOF and hopefully, it will be given due consideration in the next budget,” said Fadillah in his speech at the launch of his ministry's Commodity Track Dialogue with Selangor oil palm smallholders at Pulau Carey near here. Later, when met by the media, Fadillah explained that what the government is currently doing for the replanting initiative is providing soft loans through Agrobank, where the smallholders are only charged interest or a management fee of 2% and start making a repayment in the fifth year.

A total of 474 local products, technologies and services have been successfully commercialised through the organisation of the Malaysian Commercialisation Year Summit (MCY Summit) from 2016 to 2022. Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (Mosti) in a statement on Friday (Aug 4) said the commercialisation of the products, technologies and services involved both the local and international markets with a total revenue of over RM540 million. Furthermore, Malaysia’s participation in Expo 2020 Dubai, spearheaded by Mosti, successfully generated a return on investment and sales of over RM9 billion. “MCY serves as a platform to recognise local technology entrepreneurs for their success in commercialising research, development, and innovation (R&D&I) to local and international markets. “As it enters its seventh year of implementation, MCY also enters the third year of MCY 3.0 phase themed MCY Goes Global, an initiative aimed at commercialising local R&D&I outcomes at the global stage,” it said.