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The Deputy Minister of Finance Mr Nhlanhla Nene will today, Thursday 30 June 2011 launch the African Debt Management and Bond Market Development Centre. The initiative to establish the centre in South Africa came from African debt managers who expressed the need for a structural skill-sharing platform, aimed at promoting sound policies for African debt management and a strong infrastructure of bond markets, which subscribes to best practices. It is expected that this initiative will lower government’s borrowing costs and also encourage investments by domestic and international financial institutions.
The Centre aims to encourage co-operation, not only amongst African debt managers, but also other role-players such as exchanges and other financial institutions, to work towards sound practices, in order to create stronger securities markets and by building the necessary market infrastructure in Africa.
The Centre will mainly focus on –
• Promoting policy dialogue among Africa Debt Managers;
• Drafting and publishing an African bond market monitor and compiling debt data and statistics;
• Sharing practices in public debt management and the development of bond markets;
• Engaging in capacity building programmes to enhance the skills level of debt managers in Africa; and
• Promoting co-operation of the centre with the other multilateral, regional and financial institutions in respect of complementary projects and activities.
The centre will be run by experts in the field of debt management and bond market development. The work of the centre will be supported by a steering committee, comprising senior public debt managers from Africa and senior officials from financial institutions with extended African bond market experience. The launch will also be attended by the Deputy Secretary-General of the OECD, Mr Mario Amano. Both the National Treasury and the OECD will oversee all activities and the day to day operations of the Centre as stipulated in the MOU.
The establishment of the centre was approved from Cabinet on 30 March 2011. Following this, a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed by the Minister of Finance, Mr Pravin Gordhan, and the Secretary- General of the OECD, Mr Angel Gurria, on 25 May 2011.