Recognizing that investments directed towards export diversification and increased manufacturing industries have been the most reliable strategy and path to achieving sustainable inclusive growth and enhanced integration into the global economy, the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) has initiated actions to promote structural transformation and value addition in African economies, Bank President Jean-Louis Ekra, has announced.
Speaking during the CEO Panel at the 2015 New York Africa Forum in Libreville on 29 August, Mr. Ekra said that Afreximbank was implementing an export development programme under which it was using credit, risk bearing, twining, market access and advisory services to help Africa create non-commodity export products for sale to a broad range of export markets.
It was also using the Bank’s project-related financing programmes to provide foreign currency financing to private promoters of export projects to acquire equipment and raw material for processing raw commodities into semi-manufactured and manufactured products, he said. Afreximbank had also designed a number of innovative products to facilitate capital inflows into the continent and to accelerate structural transformation. They included an Investment Guarantee Facility, a Country Risk Guarantee Facility and a Reimbursement Guarantee Facility.
The President highlighted the importance of the deepening of private-public partnerships in driving structural change and said that this was critical in closing the infrastructure gap, generating employment and expanding industrial output in order to reduce Africa’s vulnerability to adverse terms of trade shocks.
The CEO panel examined what impact the projected robust GDP growth in Africa in the coming years, in contrast to weak global growth, would have on the private sector’s business growth and expansion.
Other members of the panel included Musabbeh Al Kaabi, CEO of Mubadala Petroleum of the United Arab Emirates; Dominic Barton, Global Managing Director at McKinsey & Company, United Kingdom; Amadou Diallo, CEO of DHL Freight, Senegal; Ebenezer Essoka, Vice Chairman for Africa at Standard Chartered Bank, South Africa; Ciro Antonio Pagano, Executive Vice President for Sub Saharan African Region Department at Eni, Italy; and Alan Kasujja of the BBC’s Newsday programme.
Now in its fourth edition, the New York Forum Africa brings together business and political leaders for discussions to draw up road maps for business and national policy makers to drive Africa’s transformation in its next stage of development.
A cross-section view of the CEO panel