President Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry Mr. Babatunde Paul Ruwase, FCA has called on capital market regulators to embark on advocacy to make Pension Funds available in the market for long term investment. He made the call during a courtesy visit to the Exchange.
He said “First, let me express the appreciation of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry for the opportunity of this courtesy visit. It is our belief that the Nigerian Stock Exchange and the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry are major stakeholders in the Nigerian Economy. We have a lot to do together to promote private sector development and the advancement of the Nigerian economy.
“We seek collaboration with the Nigeria Stock Exchange in making this happen, especially in the following areas: Mobilisation of Capital for Investors especially the indigenous ones. As you very well know, the costs of fund in money market as well as tenure of funds are not in tune with the yearning of investors, especially those with a long term perspective. This has constrained the growth of key sectors including agriculture, manufacturing, property, construction, infrastructure etc. All these sectors need affordable long term funds. The Capital Market window naturally provides the good option for funding of such investments. We would like to see a better impact of this funding window. There is also need to collectively strengthen advocacy to make pension funds available for long term financing needs of the economy.
“We should also work together to explore options of financing of small businesses. As in many other economies, SME’s are critical to economic development especially the creation of jobs and the promotion of inclusiveness in the Nigerian Economy. Funding SMEs remains a major challenge in our economy. It has been difficult to unlock the potentials in the sector partly as result of this problem.We would like to partner with the NSE in the promotion of good corporate governance and scaling up of business ethics. We are concerned about the deterioration of values of trust and integrity in Business practices. Monetary, fiscal and trade policies have significant impact on the performance of the stock market and private sector investments generally. It will be useful for us to collaborate to promote investment friendly policies in the economy through regular engagements with the relevant authorities of government.
“We need to attract more private capital [domestic and foreign] into this economy, especially now that it is obvious that the government does not have the financial resources to fix the economy. There are several other areas in which we can collaborate especially in sharing information. It is our hope that this interaction will occur more frequently so that together we can deliberate on response strategies to emerging challenges in the economy.”
