A team from the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) led by Kanayo Awani, Managing Director, Intra-African Trade Initiative, have visited C&H Garments Factory located in the Bole Lemi Industrial Park in Addis Ababa to get a sense of the challenges involved in setting up such factories in Africa.
Ms. Awani told Ms. Candy Ma, CEO of C&H Garments, that the visit was to enable the team observe the success achieved in Ethiopia under the Made-In-Africa Initiative and to identify challenges that had to be addressed as well as see the key success factors from that experience.
She commended C&H Garments for the foresight in establishing the factory and said that it demonstrated that the Made-In-Africa Initiative was helping Africa to capture opportunities arising from the relocation of labor-intensive light manufacturing from China to Africa and boosting industrialization and structural transformation of the continent.
Ms. Awani said that the relocation would attract foreign direct investments into Africa and engender technological transfer, knowledge spill-over and demonstration effects that could act as catalysts for domestic entrepreneurs to engage in the production of non-traditional goods.
The Made-in-Africa initiative is aligned with the industrialization programme which Afreximbank was developing under its Intra-African Trade Initiative to accelerate Africa’s industrialization, she said. That programme would focus on such activities as development and operation of industrial parks to promote light manufacturing and the processing of agricultural products.
Ms. Awani said that Afreximbank would support C&H Garments’ plan to expand to Senegal and to source its raw materials from other African countries.
Developed under the Made-in-Africa Initiative, the C&H Garments factory, which opened in 2015, is one of 22 sheds in the Bole Lemi Industrial Park on the outskirts of Addis Ababa. It employs 300 people.
Accompanying Ms. Awani on the visit were Kofi Adomakoh, Director, Project Finance Department, and Jean-Christian Koudou of the Export Development Department.