Laying the groundwork: Can the Congo build its own stock market? | Binghamton News – Binghamton University
Currently, there are 29 stock exchanges, including two regional exchanges, on the African continent. Several countries have either their own stock markets or belong to a regional stock exchange, which fuel their economies and provide a way for individuals to invest in their country’s future.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) isn’t among them. That’s something that Binghamton University Visiting Assistant Professor of Economics Charles Sebuharara would like to see changed.
On Nov. 13, he gave his first international public lecture on stock markets and how they could be introduced into the DRC. It was held on Zoom from the basement of his home and in French, one of his native languages.
Sebuharara is originally from the DRC, and earned his bachelor’s degree in financial management at the University of Kinshasa. After earning his master’s and then his PhD in economics at Binghamton in 1991 and 2005, respectively, he spent two years teaching in Binghamton University’s School of Management before heading to Virginia Tech for postdoctoral studies in finance. At the completion of this program of study, he taught in Virginia Tech’s Department of Finance and for Wake Forest University’s Business School, before returning to Binghamton in 2014. Sebuharara currently also serves as a member of the Investment Advisory Committee of S.E.E.D. Planning Group, LLC., a local financial firm.
Sebuharara organized the lecture at the request of some of his former colleagues in the DRC. It was partly inspired by the findings of his undergraduate thesis work on bank credit and investments, and his postgraduate teaching and research work, including his doctoral thesis on aspects of macroeconomics and financial reforms in developing countries. His lecture was attended by a diverse audience from the DRC, the United States and Canada, including professors, a bank executive and a senator from the Congo, as well as the national president of that country’s accounting board.
A former Belgian colony, the DRC has a variety of natural resources, along with well-educated and talented people, Sebuharara pointed out.
“In the Congo, you have many brilliant people with great ideas — entrepreneurs — but unfortunately, the country lacks a robust system that can help them implement those ideas and take them to even higher levels of business success,” he said.
Planting the seeds
Before Sebuharara moved to the United States, he worked for the Central Bank of the Congo, where he was among the first staff members responsible for the implementation of the early government treasury bonds operation, which could have become the precursor of a true securities market in DRC. The initiative has proved unsuccessful. …….