BULAWAYO - The Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE) last year turned down a proposal by the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) to be included under a new initiative, the African Board, to help lure investors.
JSE last year started the African Board to attract companies from outside South Africa, setting fees at levels that would only cover its costs. Speaking at the just ended World Economic Forum on Africa held in Tanzania, JSE deputy chief executive officer, Nicky Newton-King, said talks with other African bourses had failed to materialize.
“Redesigning Africa’s capital markets is the most important thing. It’s about linking exchanges. We need a harmonization of standards across the market. People aren’t going to trade in a market unless we’ve sorted this first thing out.”
“Talks with stock exchanges in Botswana, Kenya, Nigeria, Botswana, Ghana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe to combine have failed to result in agreement, with bourses citing concerns that the JSE would take business away from smaller exchanges,” he said.
JSE Ltd Africa’s largest bond and stock exchanges trader said it will urge policy makers on the continent to link their bourses electronically to boost trading volumes.
The market value of companies traded on the Johannesburg exchange is $408 billion, more than 10 times the $40 billion of sub-Saharan Africa’s second-biggest market, Nigeria.
Post published in: Manufacturing