The Bourse Régionale des Valeurs Mobilières (BRVM), a stock exchange for eight countries that form the west African CFA franc monetary zone, has long had a reputation for lacking dynamism and offering few opportunities for investors, particularly foreign ones.
In part, this is merely a reflection of economic reality. Many members of the West African Economic and Monetary Union, know by its French acronym UEMOA, are small and poor, even by African standards. And the region still suffers from political instability, with Guinea-Bissau and Mali, neither of which has any companies listed on the BRVM, having experienced military coups in the past two years.