“It is challenging, there are no two ways about it,” Muhamad Umar Swift said in an interview.

“Being a director is not just about gender, it’s far more than that, do you have the skill set?” he asked.

Under a mandate announced last year, Malaysia’s large capitalisation firms must have at least one woman on their boards by September 1. Other listed companies have until June 1, 2023 to comply. Swift said about 30 of the top 100 companies are already compliant, meaning the other 70 still need to act.

“There are competent candidates out there, but we need to get them in,” Swift said in an interview after speaking at the Bloomberg Sustainable Business Summit in Singapore.

He is confident the target will be met, Bloomberg reports.

“We should get there, we need to get there,” said Swift, who told the conference that companies in Malaysia must ensure boards are “no longer a boys club,” to help break the so-called glass ceiling that inhibits diversity.

Malaysia has among the most diverse boards in Asia, with women accounting for 28% of directors at the top 100 companies, according to figures from Bursa Malaysia. That compares with about 14% for companies on Japan’s main stock index, and 17% in Hong Kong.

Separately, Swift said the pipeline for initial public offerings remain strong, after companies raised a combined $523 million (RM2.3 billion) this year through July 13. The exchange is on track to have between 37 and 40 IPOs this year, he said.

The exchange is also launching a voluntary carbon market, and plans to hold its first auction by year-end. The bourse will likely import carbon credits at the start, until the domestic market develops.

“I don’t have enough nature-based solutions in Malaysia,” he said.