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SEC outlines plans to raise Capital Market contribution to GDP

By on September 16, 2014

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has disclosed plans to raise the capital market contribution to gross domestic products (GDP) from its current level to be at par with markets in Brazil, Singapore and Malaysia.

Director General of SEC, Ms. Arunma Oteh stated this at the third quarterly meeting of the Capital Market Committee (CMC) in Lagos, where stakeholders reviewed the state of the capital market and received reports from various sub-committees of the CMC.

She said, SEC will vigorously monitor the CMC 10-year capital market master plan, which was aimed at reviving and ensuring a guided growth of the Nigerian capital market.

Designed to cover a 10 year-period from 2015 to 2025, the aim of the master plan was to increase the depth of the capital market, increase foreign direct investment and diversify the sources of capital.

Briefing the gathering, chairman of the master plan committee, Mr. Dotun Suleman, said the capital market is far from where it ought to be and stressed that its contribution to GDP is low.

According to him, “To make sure we are objective in our assessment, we benchmarked Nigeria with Brazil, South Africa and Malaysia and came to the conclusion that the Nigerian capital market is underdeveloped and needs to be much more robust if it is going to play a significant role in the national aspiration to be a top 20 economy by the year 2020.”

Suleman said the objective of the master plan is for Nigeria to have a capital market that will participate adequately in the emergence of the global top 20 economies.

“What that tells you is that there is a lot of work we need to do between now and 2020. The document we have come up with has defined a number of initiatives that we need to embark upon to move the capital market to where we think it needs to be 10 years from now,” he added.
According to him, one significant challenge is the need to redefine and broaden the understanding of the capital market to include all those who have roles to play.

 

 

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