Meeting with primary dealers approved in Congo - The debate will focus on the problems which hamper the participation of banks to currency auctions
02 Aug, 2017
« Having a debate on the obstacles to the participation of primary dealers approved in Congo on the market of government securities via open subscription, in comparison to other countries of CEMAC(Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa)» was the purpose of the meeting held on Tuesday, April 1, 2017 at Radisson hotel in Brazzaville and chaired by the representative of the Congolese Minister of finance, budget and public portfolio, Armel Fridelin Mbouloukoue.
The Congo got membership of the mechanism of securities market in April 2007. The Congolese treasury issued open subscription securities ten years later in February 2017. The mechanism has a lot of advantages. It enables to borrow at less cost in local currency, thus reducing the risk of exchange, to mobilize and to recycle domestic savings through projects and programmes of interest for the people of the Central African sub-region for the emergence of the financial culture etc.
Unfortunately, six months have elapsed since the Congolese treasury issued its first securities. The rate of involvement of primary dealers, i.e. the banks operating in Congo, is low. These are the bodies from which the government intend to borrow money to finance its projects.
Contrary to the rate of participation of banks of neighbouring countries like Cameroun, in March for example, for an amount of 10 billion CFA francs of securities issued by the Congolese treasury, only three primary dea-lers out of thirteen of the Congolese network took part in the process. In June, only one primary dealer agreed to participate.
In order to reverse the tendency, the head of the credit, capital market and bank monitoring at the Bank of the Central African States (BEAC), Gatien Ondaye Obili, said that the meeting held on August 1, 2017 should have first addressed the issue of the poor turn out and of the currency auctions tender sessions of banks approved in Congo, second- designed a work road map between the treasury and the banks, third- got the primary dealers involved (i.e. financial institutions) , pension funds , institutional investors, individuals, insurers and so on, on the market of securities. The market gives many opportunities of investment. It was Mr. Gatien Ondaye Obili who made a presentation on the market of capital and its development in the countries of CEMAC between the end of May 2016 and the end of May 2017
