[ACCI-CAVIE] The African Development Bank Group has approved $350,000 in grant funding for technical assistance to consolidate the country’s capital markets strategy and increase the liquidity of its fixed income markets.

The grant will be sourced from the Capital Markets Development Trust Fund, a multi-donor fund administered by the African Development Bank.

The national stock exchange, Bolsa de Valores de Cabo Verde (BVC), will use the funds to develop a capital markets masterplan and upgrade current infrastructure to stimulate liquidity in secondary bond markets.

“We are delighted for the partnership with the BVC and the domestic capital markets ecosystem to support capital markets development in Cabo Verde,” said Ahmed Attout, Manager of the African Development Bank’s capital markets development division.

The program design emerged from a participatory process involving the BVC, the national ministry of Finance, the capital markets regulator, Auditoria Geral do Mercado de Valores Mobiliários and the country’s central bank, Banco de Cabo Verde.

Marcia Teixeira, BVC Executive Director said, “AfDB´s partnership, for which we are grateful, will help consolidate the capital markets as a means of excellence in project financing and resource mobilization.” It will help empower the capital markets to boost SDG implementation and its financing in Cabo Verde and West Africa, with impacts for regional and continental integration,” she said.

Cabo Verde’s national stock exchange began operations in 1998 to provide an alternative source of investment and financing to the private sector. Since 2005, around $1.4 billion worth of securities have been issued on the bourse, which has a current market capitalization of around $962 million, equivalent to just over half of the country’s GDP.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of African Development Bank Group (AfDB).