By Ken Sackey/Stephen Asante
Accra, June 19, GNA – President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has urged stakeholders to work assiduously to expand and improve the capital base of the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank).
They should also be committed to the treaty and ideals underpinning the establishment of the Bank for a shared prosperity and sustainable growth of the continent, he advised.
President Nana Akufo-Addo was delivering the keynote address at the 30th Afreximbank Annual Meeting, being hosted by Ghana, in Accra.
“Delivering the Vision, Building the Prosperity for Africans”, is the theme of the landmark meeting.
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, among others.
Highlights of the programme, featuring high-profile speakers from the continent as well as the Caribbean, include 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 the Implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), Delivering Prosperity through Industrialization 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.
Additionally, some issues relating 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 Nana Akufo-Addo pointed out that as the meeting heralded the fulfilment of the bold vision of Afreximbank’s founding pioneers, it was appropriate that stakeholders took the issues at hand seriously.
“It has become urgent to take measures to build a resilient African economy beyond aid,” he noted.
It was imperative to invest in the Afrixembank for the continent’s growth, he emphasised, and 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.
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 President stated.
“The continuous growth of Afrixembank and Africa are intertwined.”
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.
Afrixembank has disbursed over US$45 billion in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia/Ukraine crisis.
This has enabled the majority of the countries to weather 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.
Professor Benedict Oramah, President and Chairman of the Board of Directors, Afrixembank, said since its establishment three decades ago, the Bank had 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.
Afreximbank was established in 1993 by African Governments, African private and institutional investors as well as non-African financial institutions and private investors for the purpose of financing, promoting and expanding intra-African and extra-African trade.
GNA