The Confederation of Economic Associations (CTA) and the Mozambique Stock Exchange (BVM) met this Wednesday, 26 October, to reflect on possible forms of financing for Small and Medium Enterprises, with contributions from the Angola and Cape Verde Stock Exchanges.
“This visit by colleagues from the Angola and Cape Verde Stock Exchanges is very opportune as our country is experiencing moments of opportunity. I am talking about economic growth forecast at 5 percent this year and 5.3 percent next year,” said Agostinho Vuma, president of the CTA.
The leader explained that there is the “challenge of managing the alternatives to financing, namely the question of the interest rate, which everything indicates will be higher and impeditive for the access to credit by the private sector. Therefore, the presence of the Stock Exchanges is a way for us to reflect on the financing alternative for our business activity”.
In his turn, the president of the Mozambique Stock Exchange, Salim Cripton Valá, referred to various forms of financing through the Stock Exchange, explaining that “[this body] in Mozambique has created the second stock exchange market. But we felt that for this specific market aimed at SMEs, there was not much movement from them for two main reasons: one related to the management and governance of companies and the other merely legal”. He continued, “In November 2019, we created with CTA, IGEPE, IPEME and ISCAM the third market – that of incubation – in which three companies have already been listed, even in a covid-19 context. This is, therefore, a path that we are using to see which small and medium enterprises may capitalise, may have financing and may also make investments”.
Also at the same session, Salim Valá spoke about the International Conference on Capital Markets, which is being held this Thursday, and with which it is intended that “after 24 years of the existence of the Mozambique Stock Exchange, we can reflect on the past, on the present and, mainly, on the future of the capital market not only in Mozambique, but also in Angola, Cape Verde and Sao Tome and Principe. Salim Valá also clarified that “we want to see how we go from a market capitalisation of 20.5%, which in 2016 was 8%, to what are our medium-term prospects and have a market capitalisation of 35% to match the stock markets of sub-Saharan Africa.
“BVM wants to move from a situation where we currently have 11 listed companies to, by 2026, having 30 listed companies in the equity industry. These, then, are the challenges for which we will see if this conference helps us and equips us so that we can meet these goals,” concludes Salim Valá.
