Vice President Yemi Osinbajo yesterday assured the international community and investors of the present administration’s unwavering commitment towards the implementation of strategies and policies with a view to achieving economic development.
Osinbajo made the pledge while addressing participants at the second edition of Capital Market Stakeholders’ Forum organised by the National Assembly joint committee on Capital Market and Institutions in Abuja.
The vice-president who was represented by the Director General of the Debt Management Office, Patience Oniha, outlined the policy initiatives to include: Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP); unprecedented investments in capital projects in the past three years; tax incentives and the ease of doing business.
According to him, these strategies and policies are aimed at attracting “investors into various sectors of the Nigerian economy with the aim of growing and diversifying the economy, creating jobs and improving the quality of life, and underscores the importance of Nigerian capital market in the attainment of these objectives.
“Financial markets are known to be engines of growth because of the strategic role they play in the flow of funds to businesses and governments. There is extensive literature on the fact that there is a strong positive correlation between the level of development of the financial system and economic development, for the simple reason that financial markets act as intermediaries between lenders and borrowers.”
Osinbajo added that “while this correlation is certainly the case for the advanced market economies, the same cannot be said for Nigerian capital market in the areas of legislations, regulations, technology and products among others which have attracted local and foreign investors to the market, and I would like to commend the regulators and operators alike for these achievements.
“There is, however, room for innovation, increased depth and efficiency of the capital market, and this represents an opportune time for these to begin to occur in anticipation of increased and more sophisticated demand for capital market products.”
The vice-president also charged experts in the sub-sector to come up with various innovations that would provide opportunities for small and medium scale businesses to access required funds for growth.
“While deliberating on big businesses, I hope that creative ways for enabling small and medium businesses to access capital will also be considered as they have a great potential for growth, job creation and effective source of local resources,” he said.
