IDX to introduce longer trading hours mid-year

JAKARTA. The Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) expects to introduce a new schedule for trading as of the second half of this year, a bourse executive says.

IDX president director Ito Warsito said Thursday that after the change, trading on the nation's bourse would begin at either 9 a.m. or 8:30 a.m.

"We will announce the new hours in the second half [of 2011] because there are still some preparations we need to work on — the IT system and brokers," Ito told The Jakarta Post on the sidelines of the Indonesia Sharia Stock Index (ISSI) launching event at the JW Mariott hotel in Jakarta on Thursday.

Closing time will remain unchanged at 4 p.m., he added, hoping that the new hours will align the nation's bourse with regional stock exchanges, namely Singapore and Hong Kong.

“At present, fund managers are setting strategies based on Singapore and Hong Kong. With the new hours, we don't have to be followers and will be included in their strategies. So if other markets fall, we don't have to follow," Ito told the Post.

Analysts have said the extended hours will also help boost trade volume on Indonesia’s stock exchange. (Esther Samboh/The Jakarta Post)