The Investment and Capital Corporation of the Philippines (ICCP) chairman and CEO, Valentino Bagatsing underscores the importance of a stronger capital market, quality education, and policy stability to sustain the country’s current economic momentum.

In an interview with Daily Tribune’s Straight Talk, Bagatsing noted that the country’s capital market is lagging behind its regional peers, with only about 240 listed companies compared to Vietnam’s 750, Indonesia’s 1,000 and Thailand’s 3,000.

Capital market

“We have what? 230, 240 listed companies. That’s terrible. Vietnam is 750, Indonesia is 1,000, Thailand is 3,000. And I think we were the first stock market in ASEAN,” he said.

Despite being one of the oldest stock markets in Asia, Bagatsing believes the Philippines can still do better.

“The Vietnamese came here to learn how to set up a stock market… I think 10 to 15 years ago. Now they’re five times our size. And they’ve got three times our listed companies,” he added, noting that Vietnam’s success can be attributed to its excellent work ethic and discipline.

ICCP managed the initial public offering (IPO) of Cebu-based Top Line Business Development Corp. — the first company from Cebu to list in nearly a decade — which is now trading at four times its offer price.

Bagatsing expressed optimism that under the new leadership of the Securities and Exchange Commission — whom he described as a “capital market champion” — more companies would be encouraged to go public.

“But we’re not having enough IPOs this year. Well, hopefully things will step up as we have a new SEC chair who’s a capital market champion. So we’re very excited. But I think the capital market is an important element in any country’s development,” he said.

Bagatsing stressed that developing the capital market is essential to attracting investments, creating jobs, and sustaining economic growth, but warned that this requires policy stability and investor confidence in long-term contracts.

Policy stability

In strengthening policy stability, Bagatsing said that maintaining stable concession terms is crucial.

“You cannot change policies, especially for bigger [infrastructure] projects with concession agreements. Whatever terms you got should hold for the next 15–20 years,” he said.

“You cannot enter into a 20-year project and have the rules changed at year 5 or year 10,” he further stressed.

The ICCP head also emphasized the need for stricter implementation of the rule of law and penalizing policy reversals that jeopardize investment.

“If you can put measures that can penalize people who would actually change policies, then maybe… it can work,” he said.

Quality education

Bagatsing warned that without equipping Filipinos with the necessary skills through quality education, the Philippines will struggle to keep pace with other nations.

“Well, let me put it this way. I mean, you might have 30 million people under 25, but if they’re not educated and not healthy, what are you going to do? Right? You need a highly trained, well-educated workforce,” he said.

“And then that’s what will feed the economy, right? I mean, we cannot all be TikTokers,” Bagatsing added, stressing the need for more real economic activities.

“You cannot ride a virtual bus. I mean, you need to ride a bus, you need to go to work. Not everything can be remote, you know. And so you cannot eat a virtual, you know, apple. It has to be grown somewhere. And it has to reach the market.”