Written by Phani Varahabhotla and Neo Khanyile  | From Bloomberg

The Nigerian Stock Exchange the second-biggest bourse in Africa, is planning to introduce trading in financial derivatives in 2016.

“A lot of work is going on,” Chief Executive Officer Oscar Onyema said in an interview in Hong Kong today. The market is considering futures and options on both single stocks and equity indexes among financial derivatives, he said.

Nigeria is looking to deepen trading following a 19 percent slide in the market’s all-share measure this year, the worst among 17 African indexes tracked by Bloomberg. Foreign investors sold stocks from the continent’s biggest oil producer as crude prices retreated into a bear market and before a presidential election in February.

The Nigerian economy is “highly diversified” and there won’t be a “tremendous impact” from falling oil prices, Onyema said. Investors outside the country are projected to return following the vote in about two months, according to him. President Goodluck Jonathan is running for a second term.

The 195-member main index rose less than 0.1 percent to 33,570.88 by 10:16 a.m. in Lagos, ending a three-day losing stretch. The naira weakened 1.6 percent to 183.90 per dollar. Nigeria’s $520 billion economy, Africa’s largest, is forecast to grow 6.5 percent this year and next, according to a Bloomberg survey of economists.

Read more at Bloomberg