Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on Wednesday at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, met with a delegation of the London Stock Exchange Africa Advisory Group, led by its Chairman, Suneel Bakhshi.
Bakhshi, who spoke with State House correspondents after the meeting, said that the group had a mission on behalf of the London Stock Exchange to help deepen the African Stock Exchange.
He said that Nigeria was a very important country in Africa and also a strategic partner.
“So, we are working very closely with the Nigerian Stock Exchange on a number of initiatives to help deepen the Nigerian Capital Market.
“One example, we are launching tomorrow in Lagos, programme titled-Companies to Inspire Africa; we have indentified many companies that deserve to be recognised and these are SMEs which will benefit from the greatest visibility that we can provide.
“In all emerging markets including African markets, there is a need for greatest transparency; greater liquidity; for greater standardisation and for greater innovation and our belief and principle in setting up the Africa Advisory Group is that London can Exchanges such with the Nigerian Stock Exchange to the benefit of the local Capital Market.
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“So, that is just one example; we had a very good discussion today on topic of linking financing better from Pension Funds to infrastructure; that is an area that will be referenced in white papers that we have produced last year and the London Stock Exchange is partnering with our advisers here.
“They have produced five white papers around a variety of topics and they include Green Bond Financing, SMEs financing and Standardised Information Reporting,’’ he said.
He said that all the examples would help to deepen the stock market and provide liquidity so that investors and shareholders in African and Nigeria with greater confidence could finance entrepreneurs and finance companies listed on Exchanges.
On her part, Ms Catriona Laing, the British High Commissioner to Nigeria, said that the group would offer some of the studies that it had done through looking across Africa about what worked in terms of deepening and strengthening stock markets.
More so, Mr Oscar Onyema, Chief Executive Officer, Nigerian Stock Exchange(NSE) said there was a lot of thought leadership that the London Stock Exchange Advisory Group brought on board.
He said that NSE was working with the group to examine some critical issues across the continent of Africa to find solutions that would create win-win situations for the parties(NAN).