Afreximbank’s 23rd annual general meeting at the Savoy hotel |25 July 2016
Bank signs accords with key partners
The Export-Import Bank of China and Made-In-Africa Initiative are two key partners of the African Export-Import Bank and are investing a lot in Africa’s development.
On Saturday morning during the 23rd general meeting of shareholders of the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) at the Savoy hotel, Beau Vallon, the bank’s president, Dr Benedict Oramah, signed memoranda of understanding with Made-In-Africa Initiative (MIAI) representative Helen Hai and Export-Import Bank of China president Liu Liange.
Under the agreement with MIAI, Afreximbank will leverage on the company’s tremendous experience in conceptualising, developing and managing industrial parks and light manufacturing activities in African countries.
According to Dr Oramah, these activities hold the potentials for rapid job creation and fostering cross border supply chains.
He said the bank has developed a programme to support the construction of industrial parks and special economic zones across Africa. These parks and zones are expected to make export manufacturing more competitive by reducing the infrastructure constraints that are the bane of manufacturing in many African countries.
The other MoU signed was with Export-Import Bank of China which will support this same initiative with funding to the tune of US $1 billion.
Dr Oramah noted that this support is in demonstration of China’s commitment to Africa’s industrialisation for which the Chinese President, Xi Jinping, pledged an amount of US $60 billion on behalf of the Chinese government.
“You will agree with me that it is a rare thing for a country to support and finance the industrialisation of another. We must therefore acknowledge the strong friendship this demonstrates,” said Dr Oramah who also thanked the other important partners in this journey – the member states where these projects would be located and they include Côte d'Ivoire which has agreed to provide 2,000 hectares of land for the development of such parks and economic zones.