Expdonaloaded News; Brokers focus on entrepreneurship at annual conference

VICE President Yemi Osi­bayo is expected as Guest of Honour at this year’s Annual Conference of the Chartered Institute of Stockbrokers (CIS) in Lagos later this month where the focus of the over 700 participants will be on ‘Entrepreneurship and the Capital Market: Fast tracking a new Economy for Africa.’

Addressing the capital mar­ket correspondents, Tuesday in Lagos, the Chairman of the Programmes Committee, Mr Akeem Oyewale, said entre­preneurship is a key driver of the economy, and exploring the theme of the conference- Entrepreneurship and the Capital Market: Fast tracking a new Economy for Africa-would help the government articulate policies to address unemployment rate in the country.
He added: “There is a con­nection between entrepreneur­ship and capital market.The market has the capacity to bring together entrepreneurs, investors, market operators and regulators. The capital market is an avenue for people to raise capital in efficient way. We want to promote entrepre­neurship because they occupy a pivotal role in the develop­ment of capital market.This year, we are focusing on en­trepreneurship as part of our inputs towards strengthening the African capital market. The conference will provide opportunities for participants to enrich their entrepreneur­ship skills.
Corroborating Oyewale, the Chairman of the An­nual Conference Committee, Mr.Wale Agbeyangi, said “by promoting more entre­preneurs, there will be more companies listing on the Nige­rian Stock Exchange (NSE). And when more companies come up, there will be a reduc­tion in unemployment rate in the country. We are look­ing at Africa generally-South Africa,Rwanda and Ghana. People are now talking of en­trepreneurship as new econo­my for Africa and for Nigeria in particular.”
On raising capital by the entrepreneurs at the market, another member of the com­mittee, Mr Yomi Adeyemi, lamented that most entrepre­neurs are restricted to their local economies rather than looking for pan-African fund­ing.
“Even before they take their products to fellow Afri­can nations, most of the en­trepreneurs would have gone to Asia and came back. So in this conference, we want to educate people more on Africa perspective. Most of the com­panies now trading at the Ex­change as conglomerates start­ed as enterprises.They have been existing in the last 60 years. For us to grow the econ­omy, we have to develop new enterprises that will be listed on the capital market. One way to address unemployment in the country is by developing entrepreneurs. Unless we en­courage the youths to embrace entrepreneurship, we may not move forward”, he stated.