Its Managing Director, Ms Bose Owolabi, disclosed this during a virtual seminar in Lagos.

Owolabi said the trading of the gold bar which is on London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) would also include its derivatives and related products.

Owolabi said the event was organised by the licensed precious metals mining and refining company,  bullion merchant in conjunction with LCFE and the Ministry of Mines and Steel Development (MMSD).

The virtual seminar was attended by member firms of the Pension Operators Association of Nigeria (Penops), licensed commodities exchange operators, commodities broking and trading firms as well as assets manager.

Owolabi, in her welcome address, said that the seminar was one of the many initiatives with other partners was conducted ahead of the introduction of the Dukia Gold Exchange Traded Certificate (DGETC).

The Managing Director of the Lagos Commodities and Futures Exchange (LCFE), Mr Akin Akeredolu-Ale, while welcoming participants, said that the build up to the virtual seminar on investing in Gold started back in 2019.

Akeredolu-Ale said that both the LCFE and Dukia Gold had long focused on how Nigerians could invest and trade in responsibly sourced gold on a structured and regulated platform such as the LCFE.

He further expressed optimism that the Nigerian economy was taking off on a good note, particularly with the development of a commodity trading ecosystem for the solid minerals sector.

According to him, the move will further diversify the nation’s economy.

Mr Olamilekan Adegbite, Minister for Mines and Steel Development (MMDS), while delivering the keynote address, said that Gold investment were unique, time-tested wealth preservation instrument.

According to him, such instrument creates a vehicle for Nigerians to build and preserve wealth over the long term.

He noted that good delivery gold bars and their derivatives unlike jewellery, ornaments or raw gold, were Investment grade Precious Metals (IPM), which were essentially financial assets.

The chairman of the event added that the gold bar would be actively traded, similar to financial instruments such as stocks and bonds.

Adegbite urged participants and the public who were discerning and desirous of owning gold assets, to proudly consider and invest in the investment grade products.

Adegbite said the trading of the gold bar on the exchange would add value to Nigeria’s precious metal value chain.

In his goodwill message, Chairman of the National Pension Commission (PENCOM), Dr Oyindasola Oni, highlighted the wish of the industry to have more investment grade financial instruments.

Oni said that the instrument would offer more diversification of available financial assets, necessary to improve the portfolio results of pension funds and asset managers.

The chairman noted that the demand for safe-haven assets by investors, following record-high global uncertainty on performance of the stocks and bonds market, were well documented.

He said, “Investment of pension assets in gold instruments, therefore, depends on compliance with these requirements. Needless to reiterate that the safety of pension assets remains a fundamental objective of pension fund investments, always.”

Oni said pension fund operators play a critical role as institutional investors in developing the financial market.

He charged the PFAs to give serious considerations to investing part of the almost N14 trillion in their coffers in investment grade gold bullion bars.

Oni said this against the backdrop that the rapid growth of the pension assets had not seen corresponding increases in investment outlets within our domestic market.

“The government has been the largest beneficiary of pension funds investment with more than 61 per cent of the accumulated assets devoted to it,” he said.

Two key lecture presentations to enlighten participants on the benefits and implications of investing their assets in investment grade gold were made by Mrs Morohunke Bammeke, a former Managing Director of PAL Pensions and Mr David Adeyinka, an investment analyst based in the United Kingdom.

The two speakers made presentations on the benefits which investments in good delivery gold bars mean for investors in terms of wealth preservation.

They also spoke on its reliability and assurance of non-depreciation of the value of assets held in LBMA-grade gold bars even during turbulent economic times and many more advantages.