Kayode Tokede
The Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) yesterday disclosed that it helped to facilitate the raising of about N3.5trillion for the federal, state governments and corporate organisations so far in 2022, as part of its objective in positioning the capital market as the prime location for raising capital.
The Divisional Head, Capital Markets, NGX, Mr Jude Chiemeka stated this while giving his remarks at the Nigeria Integrated National Financing Framework (INFF) dialogue on a national television with the theme, “How Can Nigeria Finance its Development Priorities.”
INFF emanated as a result of a partnership between FG, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and European Union (EU) to support Nigeria in mobilising greater amounts of private and public resources to finance its development agenda.
Chiemeka stated that the capital market could serve as the primary source of bulk mobilisation of capital to finance developmental projects and NGX had implemented an array of incentives, programmes and capacity building workshops for investors.
According to him, “The pension fund industry for example has been able to leverage the issuances done by the DMO in recent times and a lot of financing has come from them.
“As an exchange, we provide the platform that will enable the government to finance projects through green instruments that these investors can invest in and ultimately benefit from the returns. And that is why it’s critical to ensure there’s constant investor education, sound governance and regulation.
“If you take a look at the recently revamped Capital Market Masterplan, there’s a conversation there around increasing retail investor participation in our markets.”
He said the goal is to revamp the current active retail participation level to 5 million by 2025. “NGX has been able to facilitate the raise of about N3.5trillion since January 2022 for corporates federal and state governments.
“We are very well equipped to support the financing of these capital projects because we have the platform, right partnerships both domestic and international.
“Today, you talk about the African Exchanges Linkage Project which commenced on November 18 and will be launched in December. That gives Nigeria the ability to leverage the investor base in other capital markets to fund the projects to grow the economy and lift people out of poverty,” he said.
