The Federal Government has disclosed its plans to introduce more tax incentives that will help boost investments in the Nigerian capital market. This was disclosed by the Honorable Minister for Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, during a courtesy call to the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) on Monday, February 24, 2020.
She explained that the Federal Government through the Ministry would work with the NSE to formulate and put in place policies that would encourage investment and help to further boost the market.
According to her, some tax provisions had been made in the recently signed Finance Act of 2019 that will help deepen the market in the areas of Real Estate Investment Schemes (REITS) and securities lending.
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The Minister said, “We have asked the Nigeria Stock Exchange to continue to work with us so that we can encourage Nigerians to invest more in the market.
“We have a lot of resources locally and we are working with the NSE to ensure we mobilize resources through the market. Any policy that the Government needs to put in place to enable the growth of the market, we will do that.’’
She went further to say that the Finance Act 2020 has taken care of a number of incentives, as it would take care of provisions that make the capital market more attractive to investors.
In her response to capital market operators’ request to defer the planned recapitalization exercise in the market, Ahmed said that the policy is expected to make them compete better in the market and make them quite stronger.
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Meanwhile, the Chief Executive Officer of NSE, Mr. Oscar Onyema, in his welcome address, described the minister’s visit as one in a series of the NSE’s renewed Government relations where strategic Government stakeholders will interact with the capital market operators and investors.
The interaction will be on important issues that affect all the parties in terms of Nigeria’s economic management and policy reforms, foreign and local investment attractiveness, ease of doing business environment, capital market and ultimately economic growth and development.
It would be recalled that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had in January 2020 disclosed plans to introduce new minimum capital requirements for capital market operators. That stressed the need for the operators to have a strong capital base in order to compete effectively in the market.
In addition, the Federal Government has been looking for ways through various policies to attract more investments into the Nigerian Capital Market.
