Malaysia’s Domestic Bond Market : A Success Story

Many emerging markets and developing economies (EMDEs) face challenges in developing a vibrant domestic bond market. Only a few have developed such markets to a level of full maturity as Malaysia has. Although the overall size of most domestic corp...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: World Bank
Format: Report
Language:English
Published: World Bank, Washington, DC 2020
Subjects:
Online Access:http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/150131601443507839/Malaysia-s-Domestic-Bond-Market-A-Success-Story
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/34538
Description
Summary:Many emerging markets and developing economies (EMDEs) face challenges in developing a vibrant domestic bond market. Only a few have developed such markets to a level of full maturity as Malaysia has. Although the overall size of most domestic corporate bond markets in EMDEs (in terms of percentage to GDP) remains small, the Malaysian capital market is one of the most well-developed among its neighbors and countries of comparable size and characteristics. The IMF’s Financial Market Index, a broad-based index to measure depth, ease of access, and efficiency of financial markets (IMF 2016), ranks the Malaysian financial market fifth in Asia after Hong Kong SAR, China, Japan, the Republic of Korea, and Singapore. According to this index, Malaysia’s debt market, which is composed of corporate bonds and sukuk, is significantly more developed than those of comparable EMDEs such as Chile and Turkey. This report primarily focuses on the development of Malaysia’s local bond market as a source of long-term local currency (LCY) financing. It aims to extract the key lessons that can benefit policy makers as well as stakeholders in both the public and private sectors. This report validates the worth of the building blocks many use for capital market development, as well as the fundamental principles and forces that have shaped and sustained the growth of Malaysia’s debt capital market. Malaysia’s ability to develop specific segments of the debt capital market can be best demonstrated through two specific cases: the domestic debt capital market has played a vital role in financing Malaysia’s infrastructure, and Malaysia has played a significant role as an Islamic finance center.