By Chinwendu Obienyi
In a bid to tap into the solid minerals space, the Lagos Commodities and Futures Exchange (LCFE) says it is working with market stakeholders to create the framework for Safe Keeping Receipt (SKR) and vault integration for gold trading in 2022.
The Managing Director, LCFE, Akin Akeredolu-Ale, disclosed this to newsmen during the LCFE’s end of the year press parley which was held in Lagos at the weekend. Whilst commenting on the performance of the exchange especially as a virtual exchange in 2020, Akeredolu-Ale said Nigeria is one of the biggest spenders in Africa but still has a trade imbalance challenge adding that the reason for this is because the commodities ecosystem is not given the adequate priority.
He said the country is yet to harness the commodities market effectively and noted that the LCFE is looking at having a structured approach in the ecosystem to see ways at which food inflation is reduced and fungible instruments can finance the agricultural commodities ecosystem so that the economy can thrive.
“We are going to tap into the solid minerals space in 2022. We want to create a framework for SKR and vault integration and in doing this we will work on African and global partnership on storage and global trading of Nigerian Gold. We will be working to see how we list the first Gold on the commodities by January 2022 and by the first quarter of 2022, we will see the weekly listing of gold bars on the exchange as well as our youths and adults buying and selling gold on the exchange”, He revealed.
According to him, it is high time the Federal government looked at ways at which it can partner with the exchange to cross commodities before it is exported outside the country.
Akeredolu-Ale further revealed that the LCFE is putting together the framework for commodity notes, listings and ETFs while adding that it is targeting Cold Chain guidelines, logistics investments and strategic partnerships especially with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for the agricultural space.
On the timeline of the commissioning of the exchange, the LCFE boss said it is working on that as well as the legal framework of how the commodities exchange works with the National Assembly.