Integration of financial markets in West Africa to increase GDP to $900 billion - WAMI

The full inte­gration of the capital markets in West Africa will help increase the sub-region’s current Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of $777 billion to about $900 billion, the Director-Gener­al of the West African Monetary Institute (WAMI), Dr Olorunsola E. Olowofeso, has said.

That, he said, would help boost liquidity and attract more capital to the sub-region and help in job creation.

Dr Olowofeso disclosed this in an interview with the media during a capacity building and sensitisation programme on the West African Market Integration Phase II Project in Accra on Tuesday.

The two-day programme was attended by more than 200 par­ticipants, including stock brokers, and operators of the capital market from West Africa. African Devel­opment Bank is sponsoring the West African Capital Market In­tegration Project under its Capital Markets Development Trust Fund.

He said the integration of the capital market in West Africa would help deepen the financial sector and the development of the sub-region.

“If you have robust capital market, it is going to attract a lot of portfolio investors to the re­gion,” Dr Olowofeso stated, adding that the integration also involved insurance and debt market.

The Director-General of WAMI said the harmonisation market rules of the West African Capital Market had been complet­ed.

He said the components of the Phase II included the develop­ment and hosting of a centralised database and a website for the West African Capital Market.

Touching on workshop, Dr Olowofeso said it was designed to enhance the skill level of differ­ent classes of market participants through dedicated trainings on op­erating rules, investment processes, trading and settlement operations for cross-border investments.

He said similar workshops had been done in Cape Verde, Cote D’Ivoire and Nigeria to educate stakeholders on the capital market integration.

The Director-General of Secu­rities and Exchange Commission, Reverend Daniel Ogbamey Tetteh, who delivered the keynote address, said the integration of the capital markets in the sub-region was vital to increase liquidity, diversify risk, expand access to capital, promote market stability and drive economic growth.

The Managing Director of the Ghana Stock Exchange, Abena Amoah, said the West African sub-region was a strategic geo­graphical footprint within Africa with a large and diverse population of more than 432 million, and that translated into a consumer base with significant domestic savings, and investing potential and inte­gration of the sub-region’s capital markets would help boost the development of the region.

“It is refreshing to note some significant progress has been made with the project, with the comple­tion of component and Compo­nent II is just starting,” she said.