The Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Ltd. has listed five key areas it will pursue to make significant strides in 2022.
The Chief Executive Officer, NGX, Mr Temi Popoola, listed the key areas as building on digital transformation, listings and delistings, technology, partnerships, and sustainability.
Popoola made the submission at the virtual annual 2021 Market Recap and 2022 Outlook in collaboration with Renaissance Capital (RenCap) on Thursday in Lagos.
Popoola said that 2021 was a positive year for the NGX indices which ended the year with positive returns except for three indices that ended in the negative.
“2021 was a generally positive year for the NGX’s suite of indices as all but three of the indices ended the year with positive returns.
“NGX’s flagship index, NGX All Share Index returned 6.1 per cent driven by recovering corporate earnings and improved investor sentiments. The equity capitalisation rose by 5.89 per cent or N1.24 trillion during the year.
“The NGX Oil and Gas Index was the best performing index with a return of 52.52 per cent driven by recovery in the global oil prices and stronger performances from oil and gas companies.
“This was closely followed by the NGX Growth Board Index which returned 28.0 per cent,” he said.
Popoola also said: “In the fixed income market, capitalisation grew by 12.81 per cent from N17.50 trillion in 2020 to N19.74 trillion in 2021 driven majorly by the Federal Government of Nigeria bond issuances.
“The year 2021 saw the groundbreaking listing of BUA Cement’s N115 billion bond, the largest corporate bond. We also saw the listing of LFZC Funding SPV’s N10 billion, the longest dated corporate bond.
“We also saw a significant uptick in the value of turnover in the fixed income as turnover grew from N1.37 billion in 2020 to N3.52 billion in 2021.
“This improvement could be attributed to investors taking advantage of rising rates in the fixed income market.
“NGX also made significant progress in its efforts on the introduction of Exchange Traded Derivatives. We witnessed the official launch of NG Clearing, Nigeria’s premier Central Clearing Counter Party (CCP).
“The Exchange also registered seven contracts with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ahead of the launch of Exchange Traded Derivatives,” Popoola said.
He also identified some groundbreaking achievements for the year as in customer experience, to drive development and improvement of digital experience for stakeholders, the maiden edition of the digital-only version of the 2021 NGX annual Factbook (X-Factbook), and the release of an enhanced version of its X-Mobile App.
“In the equities space, NGX listed Bricklinks Africa, NGX Group and Ronchess Global Resources by introduction on The Exchange; while the fixed income market saw corporate bond issuances by BUA Cement Plc (N115 billion); CardinalStone (N5 billion); Nova Merchant Bank (N10 billion); and Coronation Merchant Bank (N25 billion), among others.
“NGX also grew the total value of securities borrowed in 2021 to N513.10 million up from N95.18 million in 2020.
“Market Making received approval on amendments to the NGX Market Making Rules and relaunched the NGX Market Making Programme across the various listed asset classes,” he said.
On his part, the Director-General, Budget Office of the Federation, Mr Ben Akabueze said that the nation’s domestic growth drivers for 2022 would be majorly driven by higher investments and expenditure.
He said in terms of expenditure, the government had maintained an expensive physical stance given the resource constraints that the country faced.
“In 2021, Nigeria launched the Nigerian Development Plan 2021 to 2025 which has an investment projected size of N349 trillion and the private sector is expected to chip in N300 trillion over the planned period,” he said.
Akabueze also explained that Nigeria needed significant private sector participation in infrastructure development to achieve desired growth and development.
Also, the Global Chief Economist/Head of Macro-strategy, RenCap, Mr Charles Robertson, predicted that Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product would grow by 2.8 per cent in 2022, while Consumer Purchasing Index would average 12 per cent year-on-year.
Robertson noted that oil alone would not make Nigeria gulf-rich. nan
