It is indeed a great pleasure to be able to join you today and to also join such seasoned distinguished guests to deliberate on important issues bordering on capital market development, benchmarking regulation against global standards, overcoming regional integration challenges, and the use of new technology and data sharing to improve efficiency and innovation on the African continent.
These are critical issues that confront African countries as they strive to attract foreign investment for sustainable development and poverty reduction. 2. The ABSA African Financial Markets Index was first launched in 2017 by OMFIF  and Barclays Africa Group (now ABSA Group Limited) through extensive quantitative and qualitative research and analysis.