“What we want is that in the future, when we list a company on Bursa (Malaysia), we can choose between a Malaysian prospectus or an ASEAN prospectus.

“With an ASEAN prospectus, we can seek investment from anyone across the entire ASEAN population. That is something very tangible,“ he told Bernama in conjunction with the 44th and 45th ASEAN Summits and Related Summits in the capital of Laos.

Nazir, who is also the vice-chairman of ASEAN-BAC and will assume the chairmanship next year, said ASEAN-BAC will collaborate with the Securities Commission (SC) to introduce the ASEAN IPO initiative.

This idea was previously presented during the ASEAN-BAC meeting in Luang Prabang, Laos.

“It received positive feedback from member countries. However, there are complexities in terms of legal and domestic regulations, such as tax and foreign exchange regulations, as different countries have different rules.

“There’s a chance that not all countries can participate in the ASEAN IPO in the beginning, so maybe we can start with two nations first and expand the number of participating nations later,” he said.