FG Urges National Savings to Boost Capital Market Liquidity

The Minister of Finance, Mrs Zainab Ahmed has said that the Federal Government is willing to set up a National Savings Committee that will make recommendations to the government on the best ways to mobilise savings that would lead to economic growth.Mrs Ahmed stated this when she held a. meeting with members of the Capital Market Master Plan
Implementation Council, CAMMIC, in Abuja,
Tuesday. She said there is need for Nigerians to imbibe the culture of savings so as to be able to participate actively in the capital market as a means of growing the economy. “We need to grow domestic investments that will be here to stay, not just people that are shopping around for where to make profit alone. It is true that the current financial system is still tiled largely toward the banks. There is a need to look at all the players and helsolve the problems. We are open to setting up the working
group so we can have a review, extract recommendations and
get to work. Those that can be done immediately we will try
to do them and the long term ones we can then plan to do
them as we move alongAhmed said the government is concerned about the volatility of the capital market and is ready to work with CAMMIC to ensure that the market i stable. According to her “We know we need foreign investors in our market, but most importantly we need to grow our domestic investors that are here to stay. The
foreign investors come in and when anything happens, they
quickly take their money and go away but our domestic
investors will always be here with us.“We are open to setting up the working
group so we can have a review, extract recommendations and
get to work. Those that can be done immediately we will try
to do them and the long term ones we can then plan to do
them as we move along“We have worked assiduously to diversify
away from our over dependence on oil and gas and the first
sector the president is interested in is in the Agricultural
sector. We know that we have not yet addressed the whole
value chain and this can be driven if we have a very active
commodities exchange market because our goods will be of
high standards as required by industries in Nigeria and
outside the country.Speaking earlier, the Chairman of CAMMIC,
Mr. Olutola Mobolurin expressed the need for Government to
pay more attention to the capital market being the Centre of the economy as regulation of the market is paramount because
the industry relies on confidence of
investorsMobolurin therefore canvassed for the
setting up of a National Savings Committee to drive the
process of fund mobilization among Nigerians and work on a
robust savings initiative that can drive the growth of the
economy.He listed some of the achievements of the
council to include dematerialization, recapitalization,
e-dividend mandate, financial literacy, National Savings
Strategy, Streamlined Bond Issuance Progress, Access to
alternative investments and Tax incentive
programmes.Other achievements are enhancing commodities
trading ecosystem, enhancing market liquidity and facilitate
the establishment of a credit enhancement
facility.For the year 2019, Mobolurin disclosed that
CAMMIC will embark on a review of the Master Plan, conduct an impact assessment of programmes and initiatives like e-dividend, dematerialization, Direct Cash Settlement among
others, expansion of commodities through registered
exchanges as well as the introduction of derivatives and
related instruments.In her remarks, Acting Director General of
the Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC, Ms. Mary Uduk
said the Commission and the market are working to make the
capital market attractive to pension funds to boost liquidity.