Afreximbank’s Managing Director of the Intra-Africa Trade Initiative, Mrs. Kanayo Awani, has urged every stakeholder in the continent to get involved in the actualization of the aspirations of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA), lest it remains an elusive dream.
Speaking at the Egypt-Africa Business Roundtable themed “promoting Egypt-Africa trade within the AfCFTA” on the sidelines of the 29th Afreximbank Annual Meeting 2022, Mrs. Awani said that with Africa currently importing more than USD 40M worth of food per year, the ongoing Ukraine crisis will have further reaching implications than the COVID-19 pandemic. “Wheat consumption in Africa is expected to reach 77M tonnes per year by 2025; 64% of which is imported from Ukraine and Russia,” added Mrs. Awani.
The good news is that through various initiatives, Afreximbank has initiated and is supporting several interventions, all aimed at actualizing the aspirations of the AfCFTA, the vehicle touted as the means to the achievement of the Africa Union’s Agenda 2063 – The Africa We Want, whose emphasis is on freedom of choice and entire self-dependence for the continent.
As a motivation for B2B and B2G engagements, Mrs. Awani mentioned the biannual Intra-Africa Trade Fair, meant to provide a platform for sharing trade, investment and market information and enabling buyers, sellers, investors and countries to meet, interact and seal business deals; MANSA, Africa’s due diligence data platform, a repository platform that provides a single source of primary data required for the conduct of customer due diligence on the continent’s entities, financial institutions, corporates and SMEs; the Pan Africa Payments and Settlement System – a cross border financial market infrastructure that enables payment transaction across Africa among many others, as some of the interventions spearhead by the Bank to catalyze intra continental trade.
And to put Afreximbank’s interventions into a practical perspective, Mrs. Awani mentioned the Bank’s consistent partnership with Egyptian businesses to help then expand their African footprint. “Our focus on Africa, even before trading under the AfCFTA commenced, has yielded impressive results with Egypt’s exports to Africa growing from $214M in 2001 to $4.7B in 2021. The impressive growth demonstrates the increasingly strategic role Africa is playing in Egypt’s trade profile.
On his part, Dr. Yousrey El-Sharkawi – Chairman of the Egypt African Businessmen’s Association (EABA) appreciated Afreximbank’s interventions and support to his Association’s membership, saying at the moment they have been able to set up 18 offices across the continent, providing information on business and investment opportunities for goods and services to and for the Egyptian trade sphere. He also announced a recently signed engagement agreement between EABA and various business bodies in Mauritius and Nigeria.
EABA was established in 2020 by a group of Egyptian businessmen as a vehicle to create a new and strong model for business and civil society organizations in the field of investment and economy, with a desire to serve the wheel of production, and to guide businessmen in Egypt and the African continent; to take strong steps without apprehension or fear of expansion. The founders derive their vision from Egypt’s direction and leadership towards supporting joint African and international work and cooperation that is the dream of Africa.
The roundtable was attended by delegates from across the continent, including major trade and investment captains, industry players and policy makers.