The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has inaugurated a committee on agro-based standards for commodities trading in Nigeria.

The Director-General, SEC, Mr Lamido Yuguda, said this at the second post-Capital Market Committee (CMC) virtual news conference.

Yuguda said the commission had constituted a technical committee to deliver agro-based standards for the country within three months.

He listed the members of the technical committee as representatives of the commission, Standards Organisations of Nigeria (SON), AFEX, Lagos Commodities and Futures Exchange (LCFE) and the Nigerian Commodities Exchange (NCX).

According to him, the agro-based standards is part of the commission’s efforts in encouraging investment in commodities space.

“This is to encourage investments in this massive area where Nigeria has a dramatic comparative advantage compared with many other countries.

“For agro-based commodities to be traded, you will need the standards and these standards will be developed by different agencies but principally the SON.

“We have engaged with these organisations, a committee has been set up and they are working hard to ensure we have these standards within the next three months,” Yuguda said.

He added that as part of measures to deepen the commodities ecosystem, the commission held engagements with the National Insurance Commission toward de-risking and insuring certain commodity assets.

This, he said, would attract more investments within the space, particularly from the pensions industry.

He added that the commission equally solicited the support of the National Bureau of Statistics to develop an effective price discovery mechanism for the commodities ecosystem.

“A technical committee has been constituted for this purpose with the mandate of developing modalities for this exercise.

“The commission acknowledges the critical role the capital market can play in long-term financing of infrastructure in the country.

“We will continue to work with relevant stakeholders to unlock the use of capital market instruments in funding key infrastructure needs, especially in roads, housing and clean energy,” Yuguda said.