Mrs Amina Ahmed, the Minister of State, Ministry of Budget and National Planning, has emphasised Federal Government’s commitment to mainstream the Capital Market Master Plan 2015-2025 into National Plan.
Ahmed said this when stakeholders in the Capital Market, led by Olutola Mobolurin, the Chairman of the Capital Market Master Plan Implementation Council (CAMMIC), visited her on Monday in Abuja.
She said “we are in the process of developing a Medium Term Plan and we are just planning a consultation process to reach out to stakeholders; you will be one of the major stakeholders.
“We all dully realise the importance of the capital market and recognise that the Nigerian capital market, like so many other things, has also suffered
“But one good is that when there was World Economic meltdown, the Nigerian capital market stood better than most capital markets in the world.’’
On the Nigeria Commodities Exchange, the minister urged stakeholders to take into cognisance the requirements that would activate the country’s exchange.
She said “we have an exchange that is comatose and I do hope that in your plan, you have taken into account what is required to activate the commodities exchange so that it can deliver the benefits for which it is intended to for produce to trade just like other instruments in the market.”
On the infrastructure plan in the country, Ahmed said there was a 25-bilion-dollar initiative which government was trying to put together.
She explained that the Sovereign Wealth Authority was leading the plan and would dully contact the capital market, adding that some investors had already indicated interest regarding the fund.
“We recognise that there is a huge infrastructure gap and there is no way government alone can fund this gap; we need to reach out to the capital market and other investors.
“We need to continue to partner with you, we can take advantage of your expertise and experience to guide us on how best we can partner toward enhanced benefit for Nigeria.”
Earlier, the CAMMIC Chairman had said that the visit was to seek the support of the ministry in adopting the objectives of the master plan and mainstreaming it into national development plan.
He said that the visit was to call on government to carry along the capabilities of stakeholders in its projects, noting that “I am sure that if both sides are on the same page, we can be of tremendous use to each other.
“And in any case, we both have the same objective — rapid economic development of Nigeria and the current drive to diversify the economy.”
Mobolurin said that given the background of today’s macroeconomic outlet, government could not possibly be the only driver of investment in the country.
The chairman added that in spite of the numerous challenges facing Nigeria, the capital market, if properly tuned and made more efficient could be used to mobilise the huge savings required in the country.
He explained that Nigerians would invest more if the environment was more favourable and if the market was given all the support it required.
On the importance of the capital market, he said it fostered economic growth by mobilising savings and efficiently allocate capital and enhanced capital formation.
“The capital market provides governments and businesses, corporate access to affordable long term finance and the most interesting is its flexibility and ability to meet needs of country, among others,’’ Mobolurin said. (NAN)
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