05 Feb 2019

Ambassador of the European Union (EU) to Botswana and SADC, Mr Jan Sadek, says a well performing stock exchange market attracts foreign investors.

Speaking at the Botswana Stock Exchange Limited (BSEL) opening bell ceremony in Gaborone on Monday, Mr Sadek said the BSEL should showcase the country’s benefits and seek potential investors.

He said it had made strides in development of market, leveraging technology, expanding the product offering, increasing the number of issuers and investors, accelerating the process of demutualisation, which was achieved in August last year.

Ambassador Sadek said in Europe, the believe was that investors and businesses benefitted from stronger, well regulated and more stable financial markets.

He said making financial markets more efficient, resilient and transparent and protecting investors was a clear objective for the EU.

He said this meant strengthening the system of financial supervision and making it more integrated to ensure that the financial system helped deliver investment, jobs and growth.

Ambassador Sadek said the EU was already engaged and working closely with the government of Botswana to improve financial supervision in Botswana.

He said to take advantage of EU’s market access offer of over 500 million people, Botswana needed to import and to export, the country needs to increase and diversify its manufacturing base.

He said the Botswana Stock Exchange’s long term vision to become a world class securities exchange and its regional leadership as chair of the committee of SADC Stock Exchanges, should place it as a key player on the global stage and enable it to attract more foreign investment through issuers, foreign retail and institutional investors.

He further said already, the exchange had two listings from EU member states out of ten foreign companies listed and said he had trust that these will increase over time as EU Member States gain interest in Botswana as a business destination.

In his welcoming remarks,  BSEL chief executive officer, Mr Thapelo Tsheole, said they were working hard to penetrate international market, more specially the European countries looking at the high population. ENDS