Local retail investors make up no more than 10% of trading activity on the Botswana Stock Exchange (BSE), said Acting CEO Kabo Bolokwe. Foreign investors on the hand hand make up to 40% of trading activity while local institutional investors make up the rest.
"But rightfully if you look at our companies, the larger portion of the market cap comes from foreign companies. [These include] listed companies from London, Australia, South Africa, as well as from Zimbabwe," Bolokwe told Kenyan Wall Street.
The BSE currently has 32 companies trading, with 24 of these being domestic and the rest foreign companies. The bourse also has 140 fixed-income instruments. To boost the attraction of the BSE to local, regional and international investors, the exchange continues to rely on positioning the bourse as a solid investment destination.
"Equities are growing, not at the pace that we like, but the pipeline is building up attractively because of the education and the outreach we've put out there to sell the listing value proposition, both domestically, within the region and internationally," Bolokwe added.
In recent times, to boost local retail investor participation, the BSE has launched the Stock Market Simulator to acclimatise local investors to partake in the bourse as well as amending listing rules to require companies to have at least 30% of their shares available for trading by the public.