The Instituto Superior de Transportes e Comunicações (ISUTC) Executive Education and the Mozambique Stock Exchange launched the Advanced Programme in Applied Finance on Thursday 13th June.
This is a “pioneering programme, representing an opportunity for professionals in the financial sector and company managers to strengthen their knowledge and skills, which aims to boost career development and increase the international competitiveness of trainees”.
According to the managing director of Transcom (the company that owns ISUTC and ITC), Luís Almeida, “we are now launching the advanced programme in Applied Finance, which aims to train and provide specific training for those who work in the financial sector or in management positions in companies, so that they know what financial instruments exist and how best to work with them. This is a programme that will take some time, it’s not a week or two, because it has some depth so that we know all these financial instruments and their availability in the country and abroad.”
Luís Almeida
He also said: “We know that there aren’t all the financial instruments in Mozambique, there are some available on the international stage. I’m not sure how many, but there are more than those that are often used, including those made available by the Mozambique Stock Exchange (BVM).”
For his part, Salim Valá, chairman of the BVM, praised the partnership between the institution and ISUTC. “It was with great pleasure that the Stock Exchange embraced ISUTC as a long-term partner to train people, to equip staff to help leverage the economy and develop Mozambique. Any institution, country or organisation that doesn’t invest strategically and massively in training its staff is doomed not to succeed in the long term. BVM is one of the institutions that is investing and wants to continue learning, because it wants to be a learning organisation that learns every day, with everyone,” he said.
The head of BVM reiterated the institution’s commitment to the new ISUTC course. “We think it’s a good framework for employees and professionals to understand the place of the capital, monetary and financial markets within the financial sector and their role in the development of the economy. The financial system is an instrument for oxygenating the development of economies,” said Salim Valá, emphasising: “we want to continue working with institutions like ISUTC on this initiative, on the one we have implemented together in the past and on many others that we will want to develop in the future to prepare staff for the complex and multiple challenges that the country has for its economic development.”
On the stock market’s performance
Salim Valá also spoke about the performance of the stock exchange, stating that there is “a market capitalisation of 28.4%, with 16 listed companies. We have 298 securities registered with the Public Securities Centre, with nearly 26,000 registered holders. We have already granted the economy more than 328.6 million meticals (5.2 billion dollars) and 17 per cent of that has gone to the private sector. Not the majority. So this is an opportunity to tell companies, employees and entrepreneurs to use the Stock Exchange.”
Salim Valá
He recalled that many companies are already using corporate bonds, such as commercial paper. “But there is one specific aspect: most of the companies that are using corporate bonds and commercial paper are financial institutions. And the question is, why? One hypothesis is that they have a better grasp of financial matters,” he explained.
Transcom was set up 26 years ago by companies in the transport and communications sector. The main shareholders were Caminhos-de-Ferro de Moçambique (CFM), Tmcel, Aeroportos de Moçambique, in other words, all the companies linked to this sector, with the aim of creating educational institutions that would train competent people and professionals. “However, a lot has changed over the years, including the shareholder structure itself, which today continues to include Tmcel, Fernav, but also Visabeira, BST and an international partner,” explained Luís Almeida.
In 1998, the ITC – Instituto de Transportes e Comunicações was created for technical-vocational education, which today has nine courses in a wide range of areas and around 2100 students at its premises on Avenida 24 de Julho.
In 2000, the ISUTC – Instituto Superior de Transportes e Comunicações was created. It has 12 bachelor’s degrees, nine in Engineering and three in Management, one Master’s in Management and three Master’s in Engineering. It has 2,300 students. “If we also add the Master’s programmes, we’re already very large and, as you can see, Transcom as a whole has around 4,500 students, 500 teachers and almost 200 employees,” said the managing director.
