Foreign investors in local stock market rising

18 Jan 2019 2056 | Business & Trade Fairs

The number of foreign nationals investing in the Cambodia Securities Exchange (CSX) increased significantly last year, with Chinese and Japanese investors leading the hike, according to the latest CSX report.

Last year, more than 20,000 investors traded on CSX. Of those, 3,090 were foreigners, an increase of nearly 19.5 percent year-on-year.

“These are very good results compared to 2017, when the increase in foreign investors was just 7.44 percent.

“Among the three thousand plus foreign investors, Chinese were still the largest group, although the biggest increase belongs to the Japanese. The number of Japanese people that traded at CSX grew by 23 percent last year.”

The report says that in 2018 the Japanese took the first spot when it comes to turnover. “More Japanese are opening accounts and are participating in trading. From being number four in terms of trading turnover in 2017, they jumped to the number one spot last year, with total turnover estimated at 3,073,656,060 riel ($768,414),” the report added.

“This shows that, with the local economy growing at around 7 percent a year, Japanese investors have found in Cambodia a new investment market.

“In the near future, the bourse’s infrastructure will be more developed with more products and choices. We are sure that the number of foreign investors in our market will continue to grow,” the report added.

Try Taihy, manager of CSX’s securities clearing and settlement department, told Khmer Times that investors are starting to pay attention to the Cambodian stock market because of the country’s stable economic situation.

“With return on investment in their home countries not being so high, investing in other countries like Cambodia seems like a good decision. As long as the real estate sector continues to thrive, CSX will remain a target for them,” he said.

Mr Taihy said the reason Chinese and Japanese nationals top the list of investors at CSX is that both countries have huge investments in the Kingdom.