Major players in the capital market across West Africa have intensified efforts to integrate their operations, to enhance cross border trading.

According to the stakeholders, the move to integrate, which began about five years ago was distorted due to uneven regulations among capital markets in the sub region.

Speaking on the first day of the two-day West Africa Capital Market Conference 2021, in Accra, the Director General of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Rev. Daniel Ogbarmey Tetteh stressed that countries with stronger capital markets have decided to start the integration and later allow others to join.

He stressed the need to move faster towards integration since it will enhance the capital market performance in the sub-region.

“Capital markets are key areas for development because they provide funds for long term capital investment. The interesting bit about having integration in the sub-region is that it will enable an issuer to have access to more fund in the region for capital expenditure”.

He stated for example that an integration will provide an opportunity for Nigerians to invest in Ghana and vice versa.

The West Africa Securities Regulators Association (WASRA) is the regional association for Capital Market Regulators in West Africa with the mandate of facilitating corporation and consultation among Capital Markets in the West African region.

As a flagship programme of WASRA, the conference is a biennial event that seeks to present the West African region and indeed Africa as a whole the opportunity to address important issues related to the orderly growth and development of the regional and continental capital markets.

The conference brought together relevant stakeholders and experts including but not limited to regulatory agencies, market operators, inter-regional economic bodies, and stock exchange managers.

The Managing Director of the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) Ekow Afedzie emphasized the need for a quick integration of the capital market on the continent.

“The processes have delayed for a while and for some observers the integration can start gradually so that other countries can join later,” he said.