MANILA, Philippines ? The Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) said it will extend trading by two hours in the afternoon starting 2009 to attract more overseas investors.

"Extending our trading hours will open our stock market to more investments by creating an overlapping link in trading hours with other exchanges," Francis Lim, the exchange's president, said in a statement.

"It is also a response to observations from foreign investors who pointed out that since the Philippine stock market is small, they first look at the bigger markets in the morning but by the time they get the opportunity to look at our market, the PSE is already closing, so why bother at all."

Currently, the PSE only trades for two and a half hours in the morning, from 9.30 a.m. (0130 GMT) to noon (0400 GMT), giving it one of the shortest trading days in the region.

Afternoon trading, from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m., will be introduced next year to coincide with a new trading system, which is scheduled to go live on or before June 30, 2009.

The PSE tried afternoon trading in 2002 but it stopped after eight months because the extended hours, from 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m., coincided with the mid-day trading break of exchanges in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Hong Kong and Thailand. Elizabeth Sanchez-Lacson, Philippine Daily Inquirer with Reuters