adminnewspaper and the London Stock Exchange in the United Kingdom.
It operates the famous FTSE 100 index and the Index 250 Index, as well as over 200 000 other indices, including 600 real-time indices on company performance.
Currently, there are seven main groups of indices: Global Equity, Regional and Partner, Fixed Income, Real Estate, Alternative Investment, Responsible Investment, and Investment Strategy.
The initiative is seen as a means through which the Government could facilitate greater integration of the domestic economy into a dynamic global economy.
This comes as the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange has been shrinking continuously, mainly due negative foreign investor perceptions of the local investment environment.
Permanent Secretary for Economic Planning and Investment Promotion Dr Desire Sibanda said the plans were intended to offset problems affecting the markets last year.
“Plans have been put in place to resuscitate activity in the capital and stock markets,” “he said.
“Since liquidity and capitalisation were tormenting the market, especially in 2011, the plans are set to ease the paradigm.
“FTSE is represented by the best performing counters on the stock exchange, – for example FTSE25 representing the top 25 counters on the ZSE in terms of capitalisation. This should help attract new investment since it gives information and guidance to foreign investors.”
Its successful implementation will see Zimbabwe become the fourth country on the continent to implement the FTSE after South Africa, Kenya and Morocco.
Dr Sibanda said other plans include the establishment of the Alternative Stock Exchange (for small-to-medium enterprises), and electronising the ZSE, which will increase the intra-day activity period from one hour
per day to 12 hours per day.
He added that the Government was mulling plans to broaden the capital markets by introducing a range of new financial instruments and expanding existing securities.
“The new instruments may include futures, bonds, a commodity derivative market, interest rate market, currency derivative market and an equity derivative market, by which a variety of investments will be offered,” said Dr Sibanda.
The capital markets have remained tight since dollarisation due to lack of money market instruments. But the proposed intervention could re-ignite activity.
Improved activity in the money markets can provide funding for the financial system, which in turn would extend credit to various productive sectors of the economy.
Zimbabwe has been on a positive economic trajectory, with economic growth for last year projected at 9,3 percent, better than a number of countries in the region and abroad.
“Zimbabwe’s (economic) growth for 2011 was greater than that of its neighbours – Zambia, Mozambique, South Africa, Malawi and Botswana,” he said.
“The country also overtook the BRIC countries in terms of economic growth rates.”
This is largely due to the positive revenue performance, which stood at around 30,3 percent of Gross Domestic Product last year, and is expected to surpass the projected 28,8 percent this year.
Online Reporter