Growing confidence in economy? SEC says over K76bn traded in govt securities in 2022

Over K76 billion was traded in the Government securities under the secondary market in 2022, an indication of investors’ confidence in these markets.

For the period up to January 13th, 2023, about K3.33 billion of government securities has been traded in the secondary markets.

This is according to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chief Executive Officer, Phillip Chitalu.

Chitalu said the K76.46 billion traded on the secondary markets last year was a huge liquidity as when compared to equity during the same period.

He said this recently in Lusaka at the 2022 economic performance and 2023 outlook town hall meeting when presenting an overview of the securities’ market.

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“So looking at the just 30 days, about 13th of January, about K3.33 billion of government securities traded going back to a full 2022, about K76.46 billion was traded.

“That is quite a lot of liquidity which when compared to equity, is not much on the market. We need to applaud ourselves because this shows that people still have a lot of confidence in the Government securities,” Chitalu said.

He also said the market currently had K75 billion saved in equities as well as outstanding corporate bonds worth K602 million.

Chitalu attributed the outstanding corporate bonds to high interest rates prevailing on the market.

“If you speak to the market, it speaks to the high interest rates. The private sector cannot raise long term funding because they link it to the yields that are currently obtaining to the government as securities.

“Because they are more risky than the government, they would have to raise their funding at above government yields so as the yields are coming out then we get to see that number K602 million coming up,” he said.

On looking into the future, Chitalu said green bonds was the way to go in raising funds.

SEC, he said, considered green bonds as attractive to help have targeted source of funding.

“Looking into the future, we see green bonds as attractive to help us sort of have targeted source of funding. We already have the guidelines gazetted that we can use to raise funding,” Chitalu said.