Africa-Press – Lesotho. One of Africa’s leading multilateral finance organisations, Afreximbank, is set to pump $7bn into 14 African countries. The cash is to help economies beset by Covid-19 fight back, and accelerate commerce between African countries.
Fourteen African countries will benefit from a $7bn injection from the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank), in the fight against Covid-19. Afreximbank had earlier approved the release of $2bn for the delivery of several million Johnson & Johnson vaccines to 26 countries on the continent.
A down payment of $330m has already been made to the American firm. The pan-African trade finance institution held its board of directors meeting from September 22 to 24 in Yaoundé, Cameroon.
Multiplying Trade Centers The board also approved the release of $119m for the construction of the Afreximbank Africa Trade Centre (AATC) in Abuja. These centers, which will be attached to all the institution’s regional offices, are intended to boost African trade.
“None of our commodities are listed on the continent. The Trade Center concept aims to gradually create an ecosystem in which our export products can be traded from Africa. It is the outline of a vision of the continent as a global trade center,” says its chief economist, Hippolyte Fofack.
Benedict Oramah, the president of Afreximbank, took advantage of his stay in Cameroon to visit the site where the building housing the Afreximbank’s regional office in Yaoundé will be built, as well as the trader center which will include a hotel, a trade information center, a conference center and an exhibition center.
Tripling of interventions In the meantime, the new regional office, which opened on September 24 and covers Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, DRC, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea, is located at the headquarters of the Caisse nationale de prévoyance sociale (CNPS).
With the opening of this office, we aim to more than triple the bank’s interventions in the region to over $5bn within five years,” said Benedict Oramah.
We will increase the number of banks we serve in Central Africa from four to 15 in the next two years and increase their trade finance lines from $85m to $500m by 2025.”
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