Housed until recently behind a German beer garden in a shopping mall, Namibia's stockmarket has just a handful of actively traded stocks. Its low profile is not unusual for Africa: the continent's public markets are mostly small and illiquid. That is not the only reason why entrepreneurs find it hard to raise capital. Pension schemes, which provide long-term capital elsewhere, have been looted or repressed in many countries and are thus rarely viable investors. And local banks are failing to meet demand for affordable loans. Banking penetra- tion is low and, with most households keeping their savings under the mattress, banks cannot recycle deposits into loans. Moreover, many were nationalised in the 1970s and have been poorly run since, often treated as piggy-banks by politicians.
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