The Minister of Finance, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, yesterday said the Federal Government would set up a committee to advise it on how best to mobilise savings to boost capital market liquidity.
Addressing members of the Capital Market Master Plan Implementation Council (CAMMIC) in Abuja, she charged Nigerians on savings for the growth of the national economy.

Her words: “We need to grow domestic investments that will be here to stay, not just people that are shopping around for where to make profit alone. It is true that the current financial system is still tilted largely towards the banks. There is need to look at all the players and help solve the problems.

“We are open to setting up the working group so we can have a review, extract recommendations and get to work. For those that can be done immediately, we will try to do them and for the long-term ones, we can then plan to do them as we move along.”

The minister stated that government was concerned about the volatility of the capital market and willing to work with CAMMIC to ensure stability.

She went on: “We know we need foreign investors in our market, but most importantly, we need to grow our domestic investors that are here to stay. The foreign investors come in and when anything happens, they quickly take their money and go away but our domestic investors will always be here with us.

“We have worked assiduously to diversify away from our over-dependence on oil and gas and the first sector the president is interested in is agriculture.

“We know that we have not yet addressed the whole value chain and this can be driven if we have a very active commodities exchange market because our goods will be of high standards as required by industries in Nigeria and outside the country.”

The Acting Director General of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Mary Uduk, said her organisation was collaborating with stakeholders to make the market more attractive to investors and pension fund managers.