Nigeria’s Capital Market Must Upscale To Fund National Devt Plan- FMDQ

Dr Vincent Nwani, Head Research FMDQ Group Plc at the weekend in Lagos spoke of the urgent need for stakeholders to further deepen the the Nigerian capital for it to adequately fund the country’s National Development Plan.
Speaking in Lagos at 2023 annual workshop of the Capital Market Correspondents Association of Nigeria (CAMCAN) with the theme: “Leveraging Capital Market in Financing the National Development Plan,” he lamented that the market has obviously not where it ought to be yet.
One way to ensure the capital market successfully powers the plan, he said in a goodwill message at the workshop, is to make it globally competitive, even as access to this market is restricted as clearly demonstrated in the challenge with foreign exchange.
Further more, Nwani stressed: “Is it liquid? Is it operationally efficient? In terms of cost, our market is one of the costliest in the world.
“Speaking of diversity, is it diversified in terms of products, in terms of securities?”
For him, therefore, the government and stakeholders need to pay more attention to housing and bridging the housing deficit, stressing that “In financing this National Development Plan, for infrastructure, we have emphasised but we also need to look at housing. About 17 million housing units are needed.
“Being able to solve that puzzle of delivering housing to the poorest of the poor, through mass housing. Any day we solve that, we will be closing the gap in the National Development Plan,” he stated.
He challenged players in the capital market to move away from bite-sized investments and make bold moves.
“We need to be bold in this market. This sachet-sized investment initiatives need to move to something big for us to be able to finance the National Development Plan,” he said.
He urged for collaboration among the economic team of Nigeria’s federal government, other stakeholders and the various exchanges in the country to attract some of the approximately US$30tr sustainability fund available globally into its capital market
This according to has become necessary is very necessary, because the exchanges cannot do it alone.
About $30tr, he noted “is out there looking for who to take it as far as sustainability is concerned.
“How is the Nigerian capital market positioning itself to be a strong recipient of this free fund? From the level of the exchanges: NGX and FMDQ, we are ready to list and are already listing,” he said.
Apart from the Federal Government, he noted that corporations and state governments are beginning to show interest in green bonds, besides “the pink bond for women-owned/ managed businesses, we are seeing a lot of interest,” he said.
“Lagos State has even gone very far and an announcement will be made on their coming to the market as far as the green bond is concerned.
“Rest assured things are being done around tapping the $30tn sustainability finance.
“The work there now is about training, enlightenment, and awareness for investors and issuers. Work is already being done on that.
“Over the last year, FMDQ has worked with FSD Africa to organise four or five different training sessions for investors, even the government, like key ministries and their functionaries in Abuja. Work is going on but like I said, we need to do more in this space,” he stressed.