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The policy advisory team assembled by President Bola Tinubu to carve out the path to a sweeping revamp of Africa’s biggest economy is betting that the Nigerian stock market’s share of the country’s GDP will jump to 25 per cent in 12 to 18 months.
That rate nearly doubles the 14.3 per cent contribution to the economy as of 9 May, an ambitious target for a market just striving to win investors back after foreign inflow hit its lowest level in more than nine years in April.
Among the strategies to achieve that end is “increased participation of pension funds and insurance companies in the capital market,” the committee said in a report seen by PREMIUM TIMES.
Offering more substantial incentives for portfolio investment through pension funds, for instance, could help the government tap deeper into a sector which had invested 65.4 per cent or N10.2 trillion of its assets under management in Federal Government Securities as of March.
Tokunbo Abiru, a current senator and one-time Polaris Bank’s managing director, chairs the sub-committee. Yemi Cardozo, chairman of Citibank Nigeria; Samaila Zubairu, president and CEO of Africa Finance Corporation and Doris Anite, are the other members.
KPMG provided the consultancy service.
The move comes as the Nigerian Exchange faces a tough time attracting new listings, having managed to record only three initial public offers since 2019.
A dedicated board targeting tech firms, with Nasdaq as its model, has been in the works for over a year.
The exchange said it plans to ease listing terms for Nigerian start-ups, hoping to grab its swathe of an ecosystem that attracted $1.2 billion last year.
READ ALSO: Nigeria’s third quarter economic growth slows to 4.03%
The think tank also urged the president to “collaborate with fintech companies to introduce new capital market products such as multi-issue structured products, special financial bonds to facilitate the interest of SMEs.”
It is projecting the GDP to run at a 7 per cent average annual growth under the current administration and expand more than twice its current size to $1 trillion in the next eight years, provided President Tinubu serves two terms in office.
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