Domestic Investors have taken over the bond market on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE), the Head of Ghana Fixed Income Market of the GSE, Mr Augustine Simons, has said.
According to him, 78 per cent of the market was currently held by locals, while the remaining 22 per cent was held by foreigners.
Mr Simons disclosed this at a workshop on the Bond Market and Ghana’s Fixed Income Market Operations in Accra on Tuesday.
The workshop was organised by the Institute of Financial Journalists (IFEJ) in collaboration with the GSE to educate journalists on the operations of the Bond Market and the Ghana Fixed Income Market to improve their reportage on the market.
Mr Simons indicated that when the Bond Market was created seven years ago, the market was dominated by foreigners, which held 70 per cent of the market.
He said the domination of the Bonk Market held good prospects for the country as it promoted financial inclusion, gave the citizens the opportunity to contribute to the financial needs of the country, help the public to diversify their investment portfolios as well as helped eased pressure on the local currency,
Mr Simons said the GFIM under the Ghana Alternative Market, was established alongside the main GSE bourse, in 2015 by stakeholders in the financial market led by GSE, Bank of Ghana, Central Securities Depository Ghana Limited, Ghana Association of Bankers, the Ministry of Finance, Financial Market Association and Licensed Dealing Members of the GSE.
“GFIM is a secondary market for the trading of all fixed income securities and other securities to be determined from time to time such as bonds, notes and treasury bills,” he said.
The Head of GFIM indicated that as of June this year about 124 billion securities had been traded on the GFIM valued at more than GH¢125 billion.
“The GFIM recorded its highest trading in 2021 since it was established in 2015 and traded more than 208 billion securities valued at more than GH¢210 billion,” he said.
Mr Simons said as of June this year, 110,932,417,429 volume of government securities had been traded with an outstanding securities of 156,480,765,703 with a turnover of 70 per cent, while corporate bonds traded over the same period stood at 13, 139,994,558 with an outstanding securities of 28,019,228,956 with a turnover of 47 per cent.
The Head of GFIM entreated corporate bodies to use the GFIM income market to raise capital to expand their businesses.
In her welcome address, the Deputy Managing Director of GSE, MsAbenaAmoah, said financial literacy was one of the core strategic pillars of the GSE.
“The objective of the GSE is to make the Accra bourse the preferred platform for the raising of long-term capital for companies and advance the development of the country,” MsAmoah said.
The President of IFEJ, MrRaybornBulley, in his remarks said the training was meant to build the capacity of the journalists on the bond market and Ghana Fixed Income Market operations.
He said it was important journalists understood the market so they could report accurately and expressed gratitude to the GSE for sponsoring the workshop.
BY KINGSLEY ASARE
