Angola plans to open its much-delayed stock market in 2016 and could even bring it forward to 2015 if the bourse was used to privatise state-owned companies, the country’s Capital Markets Commission (CMC) said yesterday. A Luanda bourse, a potential entry point for foreigners, has been in the pipeline for more than a decade, but delays – most due to lack of transparency – have frustrated investors looking to tap into one of Africa’s fastest-growing, but most impenetrable economies. The latest delay came in 2011 when the government said many Angolan companies did not meet the pre-requisites for listing. Angola is Africa’s No.2 oil producer after Nigeria and has rebuilt rapidly after the end of a civil war in 2002, but its record on transparency remains among the weakest in the world. Investors and analysts have questioned whether the Angolan companies that dominate their sectors are in a position to fulfil international standard criteria on ownership disclosure, auditing and reporting of accounts, and corporate governance.
