Aligning stock market ecosystem with homegrown startups is sensible economic development policy

THE big initiatives unveiled last week to steer innovative growth-oriented companies towards going public in Singapore were a clear admission by the government that the local market is indeed struggling to attract high quality listing aspirants.

This could - hopefully - put an end to the denial by some quarters that a problem even exists, and mark the beginning of a broader effort to address this multifaceted issue.

At least part of the reason our homegrown companies choose to list elsewhere is that valuations are depressed across a large swathe of the local market. This is a reflection of investor enthusiasm having been dulled by a protracted period of low returns.