channeling scarce capital into selected industries, prohibit / minimize risk taking through issuance of guarantees, for medium term and long - term loans. its structure should ensure that resources flow widely and efficiently to promising sectors that are capable of creating additional employment and value addition to the economy. such an institution shall be owned by the public sector in the majority. this is important to enable the institution to raise funding at low costs and have credibility with other developmental agencies at the regional and international arena such as african development bank, southern african development bank, idc, etc. other institutions of super national nature or institutions owned by foreign governments could be invited to participate as minority shareholders. private sector agencies could also be encouraged to work together with this institution by way of subscription to preferential shares and debentures of the institution. what is important here again, is that, the institution should be well capitalized, because without sufficient resources, it will never be able to perform its assigned responsibilities as per expectations. yet unfinished agenda : the role of other financial institutions commercial banks alone will not solve the deficit in demand for long - term credit nor the development bank could meet the overall financing requirements. financing needs being diverse and specific in nature, there is a need for other types of institutions like venture capital, private debt equities, etc. venture capital can play a major role in providing equity capital to finance high - risk investments e. g. grape projects, ostrich and many others. advantage of venture capital allows investors to share more fully in the rewards to a successful venture and also helps firms in avoiding cash - flow problems associated with debt financing. this is one of the options that need to be looked into by the policy makers. in this light, a tax system that recognizes, the authorities should consider the effort of venture capitalist. the same could be applicable to leasing and factoring companies. private debt securities market can also enhance the availability of long - term capital. a wellestablished private debt securities market can improve the capacity of domestic capital markets to accommodate large and more complex funding arrangements and diversify the process of financing away from the banking sector. private bond market would allow companies to obtain long - term fixed rate financing at a much lower cost relative to bank credit. this will be quite a challenging task to all of us. conclusion the namibia financial sector is still under - developed. it is still dominated by the commercial banking institutions. though there are a few specialized financial institutions, a well - designed financial superstructure is yet

tom alweendo : prospects for a monetary union in the southern african development community ( sadc ) address by mr tom alweendo, governor of the bank of namibia, at the bank of namibia ’ s annual governor ’ s address, windhoek, 18 november 2004. * * * invited guests, ladies and gentlemen : i am happy to welcome you once again at our annual event, where over the last five years i have shared my views on a number of issues of economic nature. this evening, i am going to share with you my views on the prospects for a monetary union in the southern african development community ( sadc ). this topic is by no means new and it has been discussed by various speakers on various occasions. however, because of its importance it is worth repeating and hopefully we will start building a consensus around the issue. the issue of monetary integration that is meant to ultimately lead to a monetary union on the african continent is being addressed at two levels. the first level of discussion is the continent - wide, where under the african union the continent shall establish a common monetary policy and therefore a common central bank. the association of african central banks ( aacb ) has been requested by the african union to prepare the establishment of the african central bank and the time framework. the aacb has suggested a tentative work program that will see the african central bank being established by the year 2021. the second level of discussion with regard to monetary integration is taking place at regional level, where all five african regions are expected to work on regional monetary integration. in the southern african region, sadc is working on a program where we are going to establish a common central bank in the region by 2016 and a common currency by 2018. the year 2016 sounds far enough, but this is a mere twelve years from now. namibia ’ s position with regard to a sadc monetary union is further complicated by our membership to the cma. at the cma level, we have also started with preliminary discussions that more and more points at the establishment of a cma central bank ahead of the sadc central bank. an argument could be made that since all cma member countries are members of sadc, it will be better for namibia to concentrate on the sadc monetary union discussions. however, this will only be true if one was certain that the sadc discussions will go ahead as per the agreed timeframe. the concern here is that the cma is a de facto monetary union, except that the