With 50 countries, 20 bourses and few common financial standards, Africa's equity markets look much like those in Europe 30 years ago.

As a result, the exchanges are suffering a lack of foreign investment which is exacerbated by the capital flight out of emerging markets with the slowing of the global economy.

But the ambitions of Africa's stock exchanges are to create regional trading hubs to boost the amount invested and give investor access to a broader range of stocks.

South Africa is the most advanced since the abolition of foreign exchange controls and the introduction of a two-tier system for the blue chips and smaller companies.

It is eyeing alliances with the eight other southern African exchanges.

The Cairo Stock Exchange is also trying to push forward with similar plans, while in Western Africa, a regional exchange is already up and running in Abidjan, Ivory Coast.

Regulatory frameworks

Africa is the world's poorest continent and creating the regulatory frameworks for stock trading has not been a priority for many countries.

One stumbling block to opening up these markets is a lack of uniform accounting standards.

Regulators around the world are currently trying to agree on an international standard which will probably be along the lines of the US' generally accepted accounting practices (GAAP).

A common standard would mean foreign investors would have a benchmark to judge the performance of their investments.

South African lead

The Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) is the biggest in Africa by far with a daily turnover of 2.5bn rand ($304m).

Despite some of the biggest names on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange jumping ship to list offshore, the JSE still has a capitalisation of around $200bn, representing about 90% of all of Africa.

In moves to increase its attractiveness to investors it has plans to trade its largest companies on the London Stock Exchange's SETS trading system.

The government is also moving to restructure the market regulator based on the UK's Financial Services Authority.

It hopes that this will give it the lead position in southern Africa to become the central hub for the region's exchanges.

Not all rosy

But other exchanges are not having as much success as the JSE in their expansion plans.

The Egyptian exchange is looking to corner the North African market but its gleaming new state-of-the art premises built last year stand empty.

The global economic downturn means that investors have pulled out of the emerging markets.

For now this has put pay to the Cairo Stock Exchange's ambition to become a hub for the Middle East and North Africa.

Confidence in other exchanges is also weak.

In Nigeria, the Stock Exchange and its domestic rival, the Abuja Stock Exchange (ASE), have clashed over trading rights for some shares.

The ASE, despite being launched on 2 May, has failed to conduct a single trade and the government is now considering forcing the two to merge to rebuild investor confidence.