By Yakubu LAAH InvestAdvocate
Lagos (INVESTADVOCATE)-Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede, first vice-president of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) on Thursday unveiled five (5) areas of opportunities within the African Exchanges in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Aig-Imoukhuede unveiled these opportunities at his key note address entitled “Africa Rising – The Role of Securities Exchanges” delivered at the Building African Financial Markets Seminar 2014.
According to Aig-Imoukhuede, the five (5) areas of opportunities within which African Exchanges can make impactful interventions for the economic wellbeing of their nation states include capital formation, income inequality/wealth divide, economic policy/planning, sustainability and best practices.
On the opportunities in Africa, the NSE’s first vice chairman predicted that the continent will lead global economic growth in the coming years as Africa has recorded an average growth rate of five percent (5%) over the past 10 years, underscoring its resilience to regional and global headwinds.
“By reconsidering our current priorities and building on our knowledge base of models and practices that enable us leapfrog from our current third world realities to higher levels of development, we can change the Africa Rising narrative and make it ‘Africa has arrived’,” he affirmed.
Aig-Imoukhuede addressed how private and public sector leaders must be made to understand that Exchanges are particularly important in the provision of long-term financing, as they help with mobilizing resources and directing the flow of savings and investments to businesses.
He further highlighted the importance of maintaining consistent policy regimes based on just and equitable principles that will generate and preserve issuer and investor confidence in African capital markets.
On the Nigerian bourse, the NSE’s first vice chairman affirmed that in an effort to raise corporate Nigeria’s level of competitiveness, the NSE recently developed a Corporate Governance Rating System (CGRS) for listed companies in partnership with the Convention on Business Integrity (CBi).
He acknowledged that though African securities exchanges are contending with challenges such as trading limited to a handful of stocks and generally low liquidity, he is of the belief that African Exchanges must lead the “march for change”, by influencing their governments to implement enabling policies that will encourage the flow of capital and investment to the continent.
“While we can talk regulation, market structure, post-trade services and other technical talk, it is important for African exchanges to look beyond the ‘bits and bytes’ of the exchange business, and consider the nuances of our respective environments.
As children, citizens and businessmen and women of this amazing continent that is often referred to as the ‘last frontier’, we can take from others’ experiences, but we must do what is right for the future of our nations and our people.
The world is getting flatter every day, and with a soaring world population we must facilitate the drive for wealth creation for our own people, while providing the platform to which global savings can be channeled. We must use this opportunity to partner with each other, to enable us further unlock our continent’s growth potential, and advance the development of our financial and capital markets,” Aig-Imoukhuede.
The third Building African Financial Markets Seminar 2014 was sponsored by the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) and African Securities Exchange Association (ASEA), with the support of the World Bank Group.
The Seminar was established to promote the growth and development of African financial markets by giving representatives from stock exchanges, regulatory bodies, stock broking firms and other interested parties the opportunity to deepen their operational knowledge about topical subjects related to capital markets.
