… As expert proffers ways to reflate economy
By Chinenye Anuforo
THE Nigerian equities market trended northwards for the second consecutive day as bargain hunting drove the All Share Index 0.5 per cent higher to 24, 748.95 points.
This was as market capitalisation of traded equities rose N43.3 billion to N8.5 trillion.
The major drivers of the positive close were Guaranty Trust Bank, Zenith Bank and Nigerian Breweries.
The improvements in performance resonated across sectors as all indices except the Industrial Goods index that closed flat. The Banking Sector Index advanced the most, up 1.9 per cent following gains in GTB and Zenith Bank.
The Consumer Goods and the Oil & Gas indices appreciated 0.6 per cent and 0.5 per cent respectively on account of gains in Nigerian Breweries Plc and Oando Plc while the Insurance Index appreciated 0.2 per cent.
After the trading session however, activity level in the market waned as volume and value traded fell 30.5 per cent and 22.8 per cent to close at 158.8 million shares valued N1.1 billion respectively.
Analysts at Afrinvest Limited argued that, “Notwithstanding the uptrend observed in the last two sessions, marketer’s short term outlook for equities remains somewhat bearish. We expect speculators to take profit in the sessions ahead.” Meanwhile they said finance expert and social commentator, Chief Livinus Okwara, has suggested new strategies to grow the Nigerian economy and reduce the socio-economic tensions facing the country.
Speaking in Lagos at the weekend, Okwara, who is the Chairman of Rimax Institute, Lagos, said the Buhari administration should immediately give soft loans to industries and millions of vulnerable Nigerians, including artisans and old people, so as to increase industrial activities and purchasing power of the people.
He said that the government should put mechanisms in place to compel banks to give soft loans to this group from their annual profits so that business activities could be enhanced and get the growing poverty in the country reduced.
Okwara, who was a former Chairman of Ojokoro Microfinance Bank Plc, Lagos, said that rather than giving hot loans to businesses who engage in quick profit making ventures, such as petrol importers, such loans should go to small businesses like traders, bricklayers, painters, among others businesses.
He accused former President Olusegun Obasanjo and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of ”deliberately killing the nation’s steel industries” in Ajaokuta, Oshogbo, Aladja, saying that an effective industrial base would have created linkages in the economy, including employment generation, free-flow of businesses and infrastructure development.