● A great success of the ASEA Conference featuring more than 500 participants;
● The addresses given during the plenary session confirmed the leading role of African stock markets in the economic recovery of the continent;
● Six interactive panels that featured constructive exchange on the emergence of African stock markets;
● The Conference was an opportunity to present important reports on the African stock markets.
The 24th Annual Conference of the African Securities Exchanges Association (ASEA) ended in great success. Organized under the theme “Financial markets: Key drivers of African emergence” at the Casablanca Stock Exchange, the Conference formed an advantageous platform for debates and exchanges between more than 500 participants from around the world. More details on the recommendations and prominent messages of the Conference are below.
All plenary session speeches confirm the leading role of capital markets in the economic recovery of Africa.
During the opening session, the Minister of Economy and Finance, the President of the Moroccan Capital Market Authority, the President of the African Securities Exchanges Association (ASEA) and the Chairman of the Board of Directors of La Bourse de Casablanca and its CEO unanimously confirmed the timeliness of the theme chosen for this 24th Conference.
Given the current economic context, the important role African stock exchanges must play in the continent’s economic recovery is now self-evident. Accordingly, the Conference program tried to answer the question of how to put this role in motion.
The current state of things indicates that in Africa, “The post-Covid19 recovery requires the mobilization of large funds of 252 billion dollars,” according to a quote by Macky Sall, President of Senegal, at the 76th session of the UN General Assembly. During this plenary session, this observation has been highlighted as a fact that will have to be faced, particularly by mobilizing the capital markets. Morocco, the Conference’s host country, has been an example since it has already identified the important and pioneering role of La Bourse de Casablanca, as presented in the Moroccan New Development Model.
The objective of the Conference was to answer various questions. How capital markets can accelerate the post-Covid economic recovery, fund the continent’s governments and infrastructure, help state-owned enterprises finance their development and diversify their sources of funding, mobilize the funds necessary for the development of small and medium enterprises, to find opportunities for expansion and job creation.
The rise of African stock markets was the main theme of the debates in the six panels scheduled during the Conference.
The first panel on laying the groundwork for accelerating the development of financial markets in Africa, moderated by the international financial expert Christopher Charlier, was attended by renowned finance speakers such as Mohamed Farid Saleh, the President of the Egyptian Stock exchange. As explained by Nandini Sukumar, President of the World Federation of Exchanges, the panel identified the crucial role of governments, who must cooperate with the stock exchanges to create an adequate environment for companies to go public.
The second panel discussed financing the continent’s governments, public enterprises and infrastructure. The latter was moderated by Richard Eckrich, Head of Investment at SFI for the Middle East and Africa and was attended by several African and international experts, including Michael Wagner of the firm Oliver Wyman, Olumide Bolumole of the Nigerian Stock Market and Opuiyo Oforiokuma of the Africa50 Fund for Infrastructure Acceleration. The panel highlighted the importance of financing public enterprises and institutions by the African stock markets. The particular challenge in Africa is to reach the necessary level, depth, variety and liquidity. Stock markets could be a tool for the government to raise capital by listing the public enterprises on the stock market.
The third panel tackled ‘Anticipating the future of disruptive technologies: key trends and implementation challenges in the financial markets sector’. Moderated by Selloua Chakri, CEO of SCL Advisory Limited, the panel brought new technologies to the center of the debate and placed them as a lever for developing African stock markets. Indeed, it is a first step by investing in proving the concept through experimenting with new technologies and partnering with good suppliers. It is necessary to adapt to new technologies, which are catalysts. Otherwise, it could prevent any organization from moving forward.
The fourth panel discussed ‘How the African economy got cool: The rise of an asset category’. Moderated by Charles Robertson, World Chief Economist and Head of macro strategies at Renaissance Capital, this panel looked at the development of African capital markets and their potential. Hence, over the last decade, growth rates in many African countries have been very high, making African markets and trade great opportunities for grabs.
The fifth panel focused on the financing of small and medium enterprises by the market and was attended by the Managing Director of the Nairobi Stock Market, Geoffrey O. Odundo ; the Vice-President of the Botswana Stock Exchange, Thapelo Tsheole; Shanthi Divakaran of the World Bank and Nasser Seddiqi, Director of Financial Operations and Markets at the Moroccan Capital Market Authority. The panel discussed the development and promotion of alternative sources of financing small and medium enterprises to preserve their growth potential. Indeed, the role of the capital market is to complement existing solutions and provide financing solutions adapted to this category of enterprises, which occupies a major place in most economies, especially in emerging markets and developing countries.
The last panel, which address the question of “Who is afraid of impact investing?”, was moderated by Shameela Soobramoney, Director of Sustainability at the Johannesburg Stock Market, with the participation of Neil Gregory of the IFC, Karim El Hnot of the Société Générale Maroc and Rachid El Achhab of CDG Capital Management. The panel highlighted the importance of sustainable investment. The latter, a truly innovative investment philosophy, is a unique opportunity to mobilize the public and private financing sources needed for sustainable and inclusive growth in Africa.
The Conference featured the presentation of important reports.
In parallel with the panels, experts from various backgrounds made presentations on specific topics. Mounssif Aderkaoui, Head of the Financial Studies and Projections Directorate of the Ministry of Economy and Finance, focused on ‘Africa under the test of climate change: What are the funding concerns and challenges?’ During his presentation, Mr. Aderkaoui first gave an overview of the impacts and challenges of financing following climate change in Africa. Then, he discussed the situation of green finance in Africa, its characteristics and its evolution. Finally, he proposed recommendations on how Africa can improve its access to green finance. His recommendations included the involvement of the local financial system and the integration of green budgets into national, local and municipal development and planning programs.
In addition, three reports from the ASEA Committees were on the agenda. One focused on disruptive technologies and was presented by Mohamed SAAD, Assistant Managing Director of the Casablanca Stock Market, while the other focused on Sustainability and was presented by Ahmed Rushdy of the Egyptian Stock Market. Finally, another presentation was given on the integration of African capital markets by Lina Tonui, the head of the African Exchanges Linkage Project (AELP).
On the first day, the report on the work of the Disruptive Technologies Group laid down the results of a study on the use, potential and added value of these technologies for African stock markets. In this respect, 72% of respondents expect a direct impact on revenues, opportunities, and cost management following the use of disruptive technologies.
The report on sustainable finance was produced following a survey administered to African stock markets members of ASEA and covered four pillars. The impact of internal evaluation, sustainability reports, the introduction of sustainable indices in markets, the promotion of green finance products, and market education and gender equality were the four main areas of focus of this study. The latter showed that only six (6) African stock markets have sustainability indices, namely the Casablanca, Egypt, Johannesburg, Cape Verde, Mauritius and Nigeria Stock Markets.
Moreover, the linkage of African stock markets has multiple advantages. The most significant is that the linkage of seven African stock markets and 14 countries of the continent with more than 1,400 billion dollars of capitalization enables the existence of a rich offer of products and wide access to African companies.
This 24th Conference was also an opportunity for the World Bank and the IFC to present its very informative report on “Public Enterprises in Emerging and Developing Economies – Lessons Learned from 30 Years of Success and Failure.” This report was produced, at the initiative of the Casablanca Stock Market and ASEA, after analyzing the positioning of companies in emerging and developing economies, particularly the successful case of Morocco.
An overall satisfaction marked the closure of the 24th ASEA Conference.
At the closing session on November 25, Dr. Amenounve, President of ASEA, gave an address in which he recalled the importance of the role of African authorities and regulators in developing the continent’s capital market. He also highlighted the opportunities offered by stock exchanges to fund state investments. Dr. Félix Edoh Kossi Amenounve also recalled that Africa is a market rich with small and medium enterprises, for whom the offers should be adapted to encourage their financing by African stock exchanges.
This Conference demonstrated, through its plenary session, panels and reports, how stock markets are an excellent tool for economic recovery and sustainable economic growth. Whether through new listings or fundraising for already-listed companies, private companies or public enterprises, large ones or small and medium ones, stock exchanges are hence unequivocally effective means of financing, particularly in this context of economic recovery.
