The Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) hopes to see transactions through the new high-frequency trading (HFT) system rise to 10% of the total volume this year from 7.7% last year.
Year-to-date, the HFT volume has already risen by one percentage point to 8.7%, said president Charamporn Jotikastira, adding that he is confident the target will be reached soon.
Since last year's soft launch, the system has been actively used by foreign investors, whose numbers are on the rise.
The market plans an official launch of the system in the fourth quarter, as it needs time to find an effective solution to the system's side effects experienced by some foreign bourses.
The obvious advantage of the system is speed, as trading orders are processed in seconds.
This multiplies trading opportunities and therefore volume.
But when the market is highly volatile, automatic ordering can be detrimental, and a tool is needed to prevent this.
So far, the SET has used the circuit breaker to halt trading at critical levels while a solution is sought.
"We have caught up with global markets in this regard but can't overlook the negative side after we saw what happened in some developed markets," said Mr Charamporn.
The SET was Asean's top performer last year, with a 36.7% return. By trading volume growth, it came in second with a 6% rise behind the Philippines (25%).
Indonesia (-13%), Singapore (-10%) and Malaysia (-8%) all showed negative growth.
Last year, the SET outpaced the Singapore Exchange (SGX) for the first time in terms of average daily trading volume, at US$1.04 billion compared with the SGX's $1.025 billion.
For the first two weeks of this year, the average daily trading volume hit 50 billion baht, and the index was at the highest level in 16 years and 10 months. Internet trading has grown in popularity, making up more than half of online trading. By market capitalisation, the SGX remains the largest in Asean at $765 billion, followed by Malaysia ($466 billion), Indonesia ($428 billion), Thailand ($390 billion) and the Philippines ($229 billion).
Amid the favourable sentiment, Mr Charamporn said the SET plans to increase the number of stocks with high liquidity to meet foreign demand. Such stocks should have market capitalisation of more than $1 billion and daily trading volume of $10 million.
Presently, the SET has 23 such stocks, equal to the SGX and up from eight five years ago. Sixteen more stocks will likely meet the criteria.
The SET has set a target to attract 96,600 new trading accounts and 22,000 accounts for the Thailand Futures Exchange. Currently, both markets have a combined 780,000 accounts.
New products this year include infrastructure funds and real estate investment trusts.