President Akufo-Addo
President Akufo-Addo is upbeat about the ability of the African Export and Import Bank (Afreximbank) to turn around the fortunes of the continent.
The bank was established in 1993 by African governments, African private and institutional investors as well as non-African financial institutions and private investors for the purposes of financing, promoting and expanding intra-African and extra-African trade.
It has so far managed to disburse over US$45 billion in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic and ongoing Russia/Ukraine war.
This has enabled majority of the countries on the continent to partly absorb the combined effects of those setbacks by helping them to honour maturing trade debt payment obligations to pay for critical imports and to pursue strategic investments.
It is for this reason the President has stressed the need for stakeholders to be assiduous in working to expand and improve the capital base of the bank.
He also wants them to be committed to the treaty and ideals underpinning the establishment of the bank for a shared prosperity and sustainable growth of the continent.
This was when he delivered the keynote address at the ongoing 30th Afreximbank Annual Meeting being held in Ghana under the theme “Delivering the Vision, Building the Prosperity for Africans.”
The three-day programme is being attended by heads of state, some former presidents, ministers of state, captains of industry, economists, financial experts and analysts, amongst others.
The programme is featuring high-profile speakers from the continent as well as the Caribbean, including a meeting of the Advisory Group on Trade Finance and Export Development in Africa, and shareholders of the Afreximbank.
Topics being discussed by the participants include Implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), Delivering Prosperity through Industrialisation, and Building Prosperity for Africans: The Challenges of Peace and Security.
Others are: Overcoming the Challenges of Food Security for Sustainable Development in Africa, African Arts and Literature in the Empowerment of an African Renaissance, and Delivering the Vision – Corporate Perspectives.
The rest relate to boosting science, technology and innovation for shared prosperity in Africa, and unlocking Africa’s trade, investment and commerce opportunities, leveraging digital platforms and ecosystems will also be discussed.
President Akufo-Addo said it has therefore become imperative to invest in the Afreximbank for the continent’s growth, and thus appealed to the African Union (AU) Commission to expedite action to making the bank a special financial institution championing Africa’s growth at all levels.
That, he said, was because the dynamics of the global economic trends, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and geo-political crises had reinforced the need for the continent to look within itself in financing its own development agenda.
“Unless we have strong financial institutions, we are not going to be there.
“The continuous growth of Afreximbank and Africa are intertwined,” the President noted.
He lauded the management of the continent’s apex bank for its financial assistance to Ghana and other African countries, following the shocks suffered by those countries in the face of the pandemic.
On his part, President and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Afreximbank, Prof. Benedict Oramah said since its establishment three decades ago, the bank has been instrumental to the cause of the continent’s growth.
He assured that the bank was proactively mobilising continental and global resources and partnerships to build industrial complexes across the continent.
By Charles Takyi-Boadu, Presidential Correspondent