BSE looks to shore up bond market
Pauline Dikuelo | Wednesday September 7, 2016 15:10
The conference, which will be held under the theme, ‘The bond market - a pillar of the economy’, also aims to bring together relevant stakeholders and participants in the bond market to engage in discussions on topics covering building a robust bond market.
According to the Botswana Stock Exchange CEO, Thapelo Tsheole the theme for the conference is cognisant of the important role that the domestic bond market is playing in the development of the country in both the public and private spheres.
“The theme and agenda of the conference underscore the potential of the domestic bond market to continue to support economic growth in a more robust manner.
“It is our interest to see developments in every facet of our market. We do not only operate the equity market, but also operate the bond market and exchange traded funds and want to see them reach and exceed levels of growth we have witnessed on the equity market,” said Tsheole. In addition, Tsheole said the bond market is relatively liquid and has grown modestly over the years as at the end of 2015, it accounted for 7.5% of the GDP, which was a modest improvement from the 7.2% recorded in 2009. He said that currently the bond market capitalisation is close to a quarter of the total domestic equity market capitalisation.
“The number of issued bonds has risen since the late 1990s at which time there were only three bonds in comparison to 39 bonds listed on the BSE by 15 different issuers at present,” he said.
In 2010, the BSE undertook a survey amongst bond market participants to try and understand the issues or structural impediments negatively affecting the development of the bond market in Botswana.
According to Tsheole, they received input from both local and across the border, which they compiled and called ‘The Botswana Bond Market Development Strategy’. Following this, BSE then put together a bond market steering committee, which is comprised of BSE and representatives from the market, that was tasked to help the BSE drive the bond market development strategy.
The conference is organised by BSE in conjunction with the Botswana Bond Market Association with the help of African Development Bank, Stanbic Bank, Bifm, Afena Capital, Investec Asset Management, Allan Gray and Basis Points Capital (BPS).