West Africa's regional BRVM bourse is targeting 12 new listings between 2018-2020, including one bank this year, the Abidjan-based exchange's chief executive said on Wednesday. Edoh Kossi Amenounve also said he expected two listings this year by small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). He declined to name any of the firms that plan to list on the bourse. "There is one in the main board in the banking sector and the two SMEs are in the distribution and IT sector," Amenounve told Reuters, referring to the listings for this year. "We identified 10 SMEs in the region that can come to the market during the next 2 to 3 years," he added in an interview on the sidelines of an investor forum in Johannesburg. The medium-sized companies have turnovers of more than $10 million, he added. "We're in discussion with many of the private equity funds that are operating in our market and we think that some of them will exit during the next 3 years so we are working with them to have some of them list their investments on the BRVM," he said, without elaborating. The regional bourse trades shares from 45 companies from some of the eight countries in the West African CFA franc currency union, including Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Benin, Togo, and Ivory Coast, a statement by BRVM showed. - Reuters