Even leading businesses in Africa often fail to see the use of getting listed on stock exchanges, said Mr Binos Yaroe, of the Nigerian Stock Exchange at the launch today of a United Nations-sponsored workshop for stock exchange practitioners in Abuja.

“The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) is still grappling with the problem of how to convince key operators in the Nigerian economy to get listed on the market,” said Mr Yaroe.

Mr Binos Yaroe spoke to an audience of stockbrokers and capital market practitioners at the opening of a three-day workshop for Stock Market Operators in Anglophone West Africa held in Abuja, organized by the Economic and Social Policy Division of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ESPD/ECA). He was representing Mrs Ndi Okereke Onyiuke the Director-General of the NSE.

Capital markets, especially stock markets, are essential for mobilizing financial resources for the Development of the private sector.

But Mr Yaroe said that despite their rising profile and high profit margins, communications outfits such as the MTN, Globacom and Vmobile, for example, have yet to be listed in the NSE.

“This is a challenge that we must address because quite a number of the key segment of the Nigerian economy is not listed in the Stock Exchange Market,” said Yaroe.

“The communications companies for instance have been considering being listed but until now, they have not come. Why? And our indices are not affected whenever there is strike because those key players in the country’s economy are not listed,” he said.

Welcoming participants earlier, Emmanuel Nnadozie, Head of the Macroeconomics and Finance Team of ESPD/ECA, pointed out that the development of capital markets in Africa is constrained by lack of appropriate conditions for establishing new stock exchanges or for improving existing ones, shortage of financial technocrats and absence of training institutions.

The third workshop of its kind, following two sub-regional workshops on capital markets held in Johannesburg in 2003 and in Cairo in 2004, this year’s Abuja workshop is part of a larger strategic plan undertaken by the ECA in partnership with Africa finance ministries, central banks and Stock markets to mitigate conditions that limit the development of African’s capital markets.

In an interview with journalists in Abuja, Dr Nnadozie said that over the years the ECA has made a positive impact on Africa through its advocacy and technical support work, analyses, advice and advocacy for social and economic development.

He listed issues such as trade negotiations for sustainable development, gender mainstreaming, information systems as well as direct micro-economic and social policy analyses.

“We also deal with African Union programmes as NEPAD (New Partnership for African Development), the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) and other kinds of initiatives,” he said.

In the case of the APRM, part of ECA’s role is to sensitize people by informing them about what the peer review mechanism is all about and making sure that there is a wide-spread-stakeholder involvement in the process.

“Beyond that, I can say that some of our activities actually have indirect impact in terms of helping to formulate policies that are pro-poor, for example, by focusing on poverty alleviation, rural development and sustainable development” he added.