Afreximbank initiatives target integration of African businesses into value chain
The African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) is implementing initiatives and programmes that seek to integrate African businesses into regional and global value chains, Kanayo Awani, Managing Director of the Banks’s Intra-African Trade Initiative, has said.
Speaking on a panel on New Trade Routes in Africa at the 2017 World Export Development Forum, Ms. Awani said that because African value chains were not integrated regionally, African SMEs were opting to export out of the region to the United States, Europe and the East, given the limited value chain activity which impacts their capacity to compete and connect.
She said that the Bank’s interventions around industrialization ensured value addition, market access and export development to support the structural transformation of the economies of member states through interventions such as industrial parks and processing zones.
The Managing Director identified the initiatives to include a trade information and payment portal that will address continent-wide payment challenges and information gaps on trade and market intelligence; internationally accredited certification centres for standards testing and certification to improve the quality of products; trade finance instruments to minimise risk and enhance access to finance; and SME-targeted interventions, such as factoring, franchising and other forms of supply chain finance.
Ms Awani added that Afreximbank was supporting leading African firms through its Intra-African Champions programme, which targets leading producers and exporters in intra African trade, and was enhancing upward linkages for smaller feeder firms in order to grow Africa’s supply chains.
President Janos Ader of Hungary opened the Forum, which was hosted by the International Trade Center and the Ministry of Trade and Foreign Affairs of the Government of Hungary. It brought together importers and exporters from the agriculture, agro-processing and agro-technology/innovation sectors. The more than 500 participants included business leaders, ministers, policymakers, heads of trade and investment support institutions, and leaders of international agencies.
The Afreximbank delegation also included Basim Hamza of the Export Development Department and Allen Asiimwe, Consultant in the Intra-African Trade Initiative.
