Accra, Ghana.//-The Managing Director of the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE), Madam Abena Amoah, today called for greater regional partnerships to boost West Africa’s capital markets to enable them to provide funds for businesses to undertake big-ticket projects in the sub-region.
She made the call at the inaugural West Africa Bond Capital Market Conference held in Accra today.
The conference organised by the GSE in partnership with International Capital Market Association (ICMA) was under the theme-‘Shaping the Future of West Africa’s Bond Markets: Trends, Opportunities, and Innovations’.
According to her, the key aim of the conference is to discuss and come with a strategy around how to grow the West Africa bond markets to achieve the objectives that they are looking for.
Key objectives
Madam Amoah said: “We know that West Africa has a lot of infrastructure deficit. We know that our businesses here need patience long term capital. We know that our governments need access to patience capital, and importantly, we know that West African citizens deserve opportunities to be educated, and to invest in ventures that can be profitable”.
So, she explained that their “aim especially in today’s world where we have been shut out of international capital market where a lot of countries are looking in.
It is very important that for economic growth, we focus on how we develop our own. When we have strong domestic capital markets in Ghana, Nigeria, and the French-speaking West African economies, it means that our citizens have opportunities to save, invest, co-invest in businesses, co-invest in infrastructure such as roads, transportation, health, agriculture, clean energy, among others which are important to us”.
When we pool these sources of investments or savings together, we can then deliver products that our economies need, and that for us is a key source of wealth creation, Madam Amoah stated.
“This has been the model that Asia has adopted to get themselves developed, and Africa as the next growth spot of the world or last growth spot of the world needs to develop strong domestic capital markets be it bond or equity in a way that the average Ghanaian, the average Nigerian, the average person in La Cote D’Ivoire understands and empowers and has the tools to create savings and investments, and our businesses thriving and creating jobs as well”.
The Director General of SEC Nigeria, Dr Emomotimi Agama used the occasion to call on the governments of the West African sub-region to support the capital markets to grow.
What next after the conference?
When asked what next after the maiden conference, he assured that they are going to make sure that every decision that they have reached at the event is implemented.
“We are going to strengthen our monitory capacity, and we are going to strengthen our feedback mechanisms. These are very important to make sure that we are achieved our desire aim for this conference”, Dr Agama stressed.
The Chief Executive Officer of ICMA), Bryan Pascoe, underscored the importance of collaboration among regulators, investors, issuers, and market participants in the region to ensure the development of a robust and resilient bond market infrastructure for all.
“With the right frameworks, the region’s bond markets have the potential to become a cornerstone of broader economic stability and growth”.
