Adesina opens trading at London Stock Exchange, AfDB becomes member of LAAG

On Wednesday, January 22, the President of the African Development Bank, Akinwumi Adesina was welcomed to open markets for trading at the London Stock Exchange.

The Chairman of London Stock Exchange, Don Robert invited the Chief of the African Development Bank at the reception in London. The reception followed the Bank's Africa Investment Forum, held in November 2018. The innovative market-place for accelerating investment into the continent is playing a valuable role in convening investors and corporates and removing the bottlenecks to investments and enabling a free flow of long-term capital.

Held in South Africa's Johannesburg, the Africa Investment Forum 2019 saw investor interest secured in deals valued at USD 40.1 billion. Mozambique featured strongly in the last year edition, with state oil and fuel company Empresa Nacional de Hidrocarbonetos, tabling the largest deal worth USD 24.6 billion.

"Deep and sustainable capital markets are key to supporting African companies and infrastructure. We look forward to continuing to play our part in the development of these markets and attracting investment to Africa. As such, we're delighted to continue our collaboration with the African Development Bank, which has now formally become a member of London Stock Exchange Group's Africa Advisory Group," Don Robert opined.

"My ringing of the bell here today marks the beginning of a new exciting, strategic, and impactful engagement between the African Development Bank and London Stock Exchange to jointly expand wealth creation in Africa and the UK," Akinwumi Adesina said.

The Chief of African Development Bank said that it would be great with London Stock Exchange Group's Africa Advisory Group (LAAG) in attracting a bigger share of the USD 5 trillion global Exchange Traded Fund Assets under management into African capital markets. The LAAG is an advocacy group that serves as a podium to boost the development of the African capital markets, enhance trade and flow of capital between the UK and Africa. On January 22, the African Development Bank became a formal member of LAAG.