On the sidelines of African Securities Exchanges Association’s 16th conference, President Sunil Benimadhu has announced the launch of the Pan-African Index, for which FTSE was chosen to create the index. The index will include 19 exchanges. South Africa will not be included because it is a different market.
“African capital markets are attracting a lot of focus from international investors despite the problems of social unrest, corruption, and political volatility. Infrastructure in Africa is lagging behind and a few points of growth percentage are lost because of lack of infrastructure of communication, telecommunication, railways, roads etc.” Sunil added
“Markets should be linked so as to improve inter-country trades. There is not enough trade among African countries, all the trade is between Africa and the rest of the world and the main reason for that is absence of infrastructure.”