Nigeria has been named among the constituents of J.P. Morgan’s new frontier-market bond index, Nairametrics reported, marking the country’s first appearance on one of the bank’s benchmarks in 11 years.
The index, also known as the Government Bond Index–Emerging Markets Edge (GBI-EM Edge), assigned Nigeria a 7.4% weighting.
The benchmark is expected to launch by the end of September and will track $328 billion in local-currency government debt spread across 425 instruments, 26 markets and 24 currencies.
Other countries carrying similar weightings include Egypt, Vietnam, Morocco, Kazakhstan, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
A different return to the index
The inclusion is notable, but it was not exactly the kind of reinstatement many had been anticipating.
Nigeria’s federal government bonds are entering the GBI-EM Edge, which is a different benchmark built for frontier and emerging economies whose local markets are not represented in J.P. Morgan’s flagship GBI-EM Global Diversified index.
This is an entirely different index from the mainstream index Nigeria was expelled from in 2015.
Nigeria first joined J.P. Morgan’s Government Bond Index in October 2012, after establishing a liquid domestic debt market.
However, that didn’t last. By January 2015, the country was placed on the bank’s Index Watch list over concerns about foreign-exchange illiquidity and difficulties investors faced repatriating funds. It was then fully phased out of the index that September, according to the Africa Report.
About $17.47 billion of eligible Nigerian government bonds, spanning 16 instruments, are now represented in the new benchmark, giving the country some exposure to the pool of international fixed-income managers who track J.P. Morgan’s indexes.
Why the Re-Entry Matters
Nigeria’s reentry into J.P. Morgan’s radar is thanks to the reforms in the foreign-exchange market that came after the unification of exchange rates and other liquidity measures introduced over the past two years.
Notably, officials had hinted at the possibility of its return well before Monday’s announcement.
Speaking at the Nigerian Investor Forum on the sidelines of the IMF/World Bank Spring Meetings in Washington in April 2025, the DG of Nigeria’s Debt Management Office, Patience Oniha, said the government had reopened talks with the bank, with investor interest picking up.
“Investors want us back in,” Oniha said at the time, adding that improvements in the foreign-exchange market had made the country eligible again.
JPMorgan builds on a new asset class
The bank has spent years expanding the GBI-EM Edge in response to the investor demand for higher-yielding government debt outside the traditional emerging-market space.
The benchmark traces back to 2017, when it began with just 11 markets and 76 bonds worth about $56 billion.
By the end of August 2026, that coverage had grown to 26 markets and about $328 billion.
Bonds must have a minimum outstanding value equivalent to $250 million and at least 2.5 years left to maturity to qualify.
Key numbers to note
- African markets account for close to 45% of the new index
- Frontier Asian economies like Vietnam, Kazakhstan, Pakistan and Bangladesh carry the maximum 8% weighting each, together making up close to a third of the total.
- The benchmark’s average nominal yield stands at 10.4%, about 440 basis points above J.P. Morgan’s mainstream emerging-market local-currency index
- Back-tested returns show the new index would have outperformed that mainstream benchmark by about 1.2 percentage points since the end of 2017.
What to expect from the index
Thomas Christiansen, head of emerging-market fixed income at fund manager UBP in London, said the launch shows how far investor thinking on frontier markets has changed.
“I don’t think this index would have been possible 10 years ago,” Christiansen said. “People are waking up to the fact that these markets are really interesting and help diversify portfolios.”
The World Bank projects that frontier economies are home to at least a fifth of the world’s population but account for only 3.1% of global capital flows and under 5% of global GDP
This is a gap analysts expect to narrow as populations in these countries grow by a projected 800 million over the next 25 years, more than the rest of the world combined.
Other countries in the new index are also exploring similar offerings. Angola’s finance minister said last week that plans to expand the country’s $18.6 billion domestic bond market were partly driven by the prospect of qualifying for J.P. Morgan’s benchmark, Reuters reported.
For Nigeria, analysts say the main focus should be on its reinstatement into the GBI-EM Global Diversified index, the benchmark it lost in 2015.
