Members
of the Ghana Securities Industries Association (GSIA), have said there
should be full enforcement of a robust regulatory and legal framework to
stimulate trading and participation of all market actors on the Ghana
Commodity Exchange (GCX), when it becomes operational.
They made
the suggestion when the GCX Project team met with members of the GSIA at
an Awareness and Sensitisation programme, organised by the Ministry of
Trade and Industry, in Accra, a release copied to the GNA, on Thursday,
by the GCX Project has said.
The GCX Project is a
Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) initiative designed to transform
Ghana’s Agricultural sector through the establishment of the first
modern commodity exchange in the country.
It is the first of its kind in the West African Sub-region and is expected to become operational by late 2016.
GSIA is the umbrella body for all brokerage firms in the country.
The
meeting was used to update stakeholders on the commodity value chain of
the status of the operations of the Project and also to share
information on the Membership Structure and Recruitment Design and
opportunities open to market actors when GCX becomes operational.
Mr.
Robert Dowuona Owoo, the Acting Project Director, who led discussions
at the programme, explained that the objective of the GCX was to
transform the lives of Ghanaians, especially those who participated in
the agriculture value chain.
He announced that a concept of
partial mandating was being explored to ensure that the Exchange had the
needed volumes so as to make trading attractive to its members.
Mr.
Owoo said the partial mandating concept would encourage sustained
active participation of market actors on the Exchange, allowing the
Regulator from time to time to require that certain commodities or
volumes of commodities be traded on an Exchange.
“This policy, if
adopted, would also compel institutions that made purchases of huge
volumes of all commodities of the quality that GCX will trade in the
future, to be executed on the Exchange through Brokers,” he said.
Making
a presentation on the Membership Structure and Requirements Design for
the GCX, Mr. Richard Ankrah, the Membership Manager of the GCX,
explained that there were five categories of membership namely:
“Institutional, Trading, Brokering, Clearing and Associate”.
He
explained that the categorisation of the membership structure had been
done to enable all market actors to participate in GCX activities
through any category as part of the all-inclusiveness policy of the
Exchange.
Mr Ankrah said the participation by Brokerage firms on
the Exchange would afford them the opportunity to increase their
clientele in terms of access to aggregators, farmers, traders and
processors.
It would also facilitate the process of trade, which
would enable them to execute orders to buy or sell commodity contracts
on behalf of clients and charging a commission.
He said becoming
members also afforded opportunity to own propriety rights to membership
seats in the trading pit, which could increase in value over time,
thereby making it possible for broking members to also trade on their
own accounts to make profits.
Mr Ankrah urged representatives of
the Brokerage firms to consider investment opportunities in other areas
of the GCX eco-system.
The sensitisation exercise also afforded
the stockbrokers the platform to know more about the regulatory and
policy environment to ensure successful operations of the Exchange, the
opportunities for auxiliary services in the transportation, logistics,
haulage and warehousing continuum of the eco-system.
It would
also make them aware of the technological infrastructure to be deployed
and protocols or policy on standards and grading of commodities to be
traded in among other concerns.
The Participants stated their
willingness to participate in a similar sensitisation engagement on the
Central Depository and Clearing and Settlement models of the GCX. |
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