Afreximbank President Prof. Benedict Oramah delivering address at IGD Frontier 100 Forum in Washington, D.C.
The
African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) is working, with the support
of African Union (AU), to create a digital ecosystem that will
eliminate the major bottlenecks to trade finance flows within Africa,
Bank President Prof. Benedict Oramah has announced in Washington D.C.
Delivering
an address on 11 April at the IGD Frontier 100 Forum organized
by the Initiative for Global Development (IGD) on the sidelines of
the World Bank/IMF Spring Meetings, Prof. Oramah said that one of the
major constraints to intra-African trade was lack of information to
support intra-regional trade and investments. That was why many
African countries were importing products from outside the continent
while neighboring countries were exporting the same products at a
much lower cost.
It
was to address that challenge that Afreximbank and the AU were
working to use digital technology to improve access to trade
information and facilitate the use of African national currencies via
intra African trade settlements, he explained.
Prof.
Oramah said that Afreximbank was developing a focused programme to
support small and medium enterprises (SMEs) across the continent,
recognizing that SMEs were a vital component to unlocking
intra-African potential.
In
his opening remarks Prof. Oramah had noted that IGD has been
facilitating discourse on important African issues over the years and
said that Afreximbank identified with the efforts and achievements of
the IGD, hence its close partnership with the initiative.
Also
speaking, Leila Ndiaye, President and CEO of IGD, said that the
initiative’s work was aimed at supporting Africa’s growth and
development agenda and at pushing to unlock intra-African trade
through SME growth and development.
Prof.
Oramah and Dr. Hippolyte Fofack, Afreximbank Chief Economist, who
accompanied him to the event, also participated in two panel
discussions, on “Supporting Africa’s Growth and Development
Agenda” and “Expanding Regional Trade and Investment for Africa’s
future”, respectively.
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