By Chinenye Anuforo
The Association of Stockbroking Houses of Nigeria (ASHON) has commenced strategic training of capital market professionals as preparatory to the inauguration of its Commodity and Futures Exchange in the earnest.
The first training in the series, Commodity and Futures Market was held yesterday under its Indian-based technical experts who exposed the participants to the fundamentals of Commodity and Futures Market.
Addressing the participants, ASHON’s Chairman, Mr. Patrick Ezeagu explained that the core objective of the training was to develop the much-needed capacity that would operate in the coming Commodity and Futures Exchange which ASHON is leading the establishment.
Ezeagu noted that every aspect of the capital market had been undergoing changes, hence , the human capital that would operate in the new environment must have the skills.
“The market is expanding and the various kinds of market we are operating are equally changing as well. From the purely equities market, we are moving into bonds and from bonds we are thinking about commodities and derivatives. “There is lack of capacity by members of ASHON and we have decided upon ourselves that the best approach is to build capacity from within. We must key into these changes that are taking place land be able to play our role as intermediaries within the market space.
“ Therefore, this training which focuses on derivatives and commodities is to ensure that we sharpen the skills of our members to trade derivatives as well as commodities, futures, options and the rest of them”, Ezeagu said.
According to him, ASHON has an obligation to protect the businesses of its members and help them to improve on service delivery to their customers in line with the global best practices.
Ezeagu who confirmed that the training was preparatory to floating a commodity and futures exchange explained that timeline could not be set for its inauguration yet due to the involvement of third parties in the process.
He however assured that every stakeholder would continue to work assiduously to ensure that the inauguration is done within the shortest possible time.
Corroborating Ezeagu, one of ASHON’s technical partners, Mr Subbiah Rajagopa of Chella Private Limited explained that as ASHON would soon commence a specialized exchange, it is necessary to expose its members to the rudiments of Commodity and Derivatives market.
According to him, from the African perspective, Nigeria used to be the largest economy in terms
of the size of its Gross Domestic Products (GDP). But due to the last two to three years of recession, it has come down in size. However, we are seeing an upward movement at the moment.
“Therefore, this is the right time to start investing in such products like derivatives and commodities because Nigeria has a large population which depends on farming and it is important that these farmers finally start benefiting from such marketing Institutions , automation and technology.”, he said