Nigeria to become leading investment destination

Nigeria Stock Exchange Director General, Oscar Onyeama

Nigeria To Become Leading Investment Destination – Onyema
Hauwa Noru-Ali, Abuja

Mr Oscar Onyema, Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Stock Exchange says with all the reforms taking place in the exchange by the year 2020 Nigeria will be the Gateway to Africa with a the market that should have topped one trillion dollars in market capitalization which includes fixed incomes equities.

He said in Abuja that the exchange is taking steps to introduce very competitive listing standards that are really qualitative based, value added services that would allow companies to reap the benefit of coming to list on the markets.

Mr Onyema added that the exchange was also making sure that the regulatory program meets up to international best practices which will enforce rules in a fair but firm manner.

``We have started introducing value added services, we have introduced a sales and retention area to maintain relationship with companies and make sure they are properly served.

“We are introducing new products, enhancing the market structure to provide liquidity and depth to the market place, all this things should help attract foreign investors but more importantly local investors as well”

He added that the exchange would partner with all stakeholders to ensure that the basic requirement to enable national, local and multinational companies to list on the market were available.

“To attract more investments on the bourse the exchange is enlisting new technology to drive trading but on the government side we believe that the Government can make certain they initiate policies to encourage multinationals to come and list in the market place so it’s a collective responsibility of both the government and the exchange to put things right to attract more investors to come to the market place”

He said that the sentiment that Nigeria is a fertile ground for investment is correct. To tap into this the exchange, it has introduced a quarterly CEO dinner so that they can bring listed companies on a sectorial bases to come and sit with the CEO of the exchange and other industry professionals to talk about issues that have to do with those sectors.

“We like to bring a company on the exchange to share their experiences from listing, I think it’s critical that when we do our road show we bring a mixture of small and medium enterprises ,the multinational and other segments of companies that are listed so that they can talk about their experiences “

“Their positive experiences when put on the table is a catalyst to other companies because there is no better advocacy than somebody that has experienced the benefits of the exchange to say to foreign investors that I came and invested and reaped bountifully”.

Hauwa/Ugo