The African Development Bank has added Mauritius and Morocco to its Bloomberg African Bond Index, marking a steady progress to deepen the local currency bond market of the continent.
The bank administers the ABABI, a family of African bond indices calculated by the independent, global index provider, Bloomberg.
The countries became members of the ABABI on January 1, 2021.
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Other members of the bond include Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Ghana and Zambia.
“This is a positive development as the inclusion of Mauritius and Morocco, two of Africa’s better-rated issuers, will improve the overall credit quality of the ABABI, which now captures close to 90 per cent of the outstanding amount of African sovereign local currency bonds,” AfDB’s Director for the Financial Sector Development Department, Stefan Nalletamby, said.
Nalletamby noted that in the current environment, the ABABI indices were a reliable tool for international investors to measure and track African sovereign bond markets.
“This will be even more relevant following the COVID-19 crisis as sovereign debt managers, who will need to further diversify their local currency funding instruments, will also need to adjust their strategies, enhance transparency and widen their fixed income investor base, given the increased financing needs of the economies,” he added.
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