Region Industrialisation: Afreximbank, Others To Mobilise $1bn
The African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank), Finance Center for South-South Cooperation (FCSSC) and Made-in-Africa Initiative (MIAI) have kicked off a joint effort to mobilise $1billion in equity fund.
The move is aimed at channelling foreign direct investment from developing (South) economies towards Africa’s industrialisation and integration into global value chains.
The framework agreement, executed by the three organisations in Beijing recently, marked the establishment of a strategic partnership among the institutions aimed at leveraging diversified financial instruments and resources to boost the region’s industrialisation, as well as China-Africa economic and commercial cooperation.
The objective of the arrangement is to develop a common investment platform anchored on Afreximbank in order to reduce investment risks and better support Africa’s industrialisation and dynamic development.
The Chairman of FCSSC, Cai E-Sheng, said that his organisation saw itself as being positioned to strengthen partnerships among South-South countries and that it had identified Afreximbank as a critical partner in achieving its goals.
He stated that, under the “Belt-and-Road” initiative, which China launched in 2013, Africa had been highlighted as one of the key targets for infrastructure and other related investments.
President of Afreximbank, Dr. Benedict Oramah, welcomed the strong relations, which China had maintained with Africa over the years and said that the collaboration with FCSSC would enable the bank to achieve its objectives of promoting intra-African trade, as well as industrialisation and export development in Africa.
The platform is expected to attract investment capital from the public and private sectors and to facilitate the flow of foreign direct investment from China and other South economies into manufacturing and other value-added activities in Africa.
The agreement also provides for the setting up of institutional trading platforms for commodities and manufactured goods to promote intra-African trade and export from African countries to countries within the continent and the global South.
Also, the three organisations will make full use of Hong Kong’s role as an international services and trading hub to bridge the information gap between the Chinese and African markets, in order to better balance trade flows between China and Africa.
Besides, they will explore the establishment of e-commerce trading platforms to facilitate the transformation from traditional offline business-to-business and business-to-customer transactions to online mode, especially with regard to small and medium-sized enterprises in Africa.
This will enable the enterprises to access new markets, participate in global value chains, and reduce intermediate transaction costs.
Other areas covered in the agreement include the utilisation of FCSSC’s financial network and expertise to facilitate exchange of resources, technology, and experience between China and African countries under the framework of South-South cooperation and the “Belt-and-Road” initiative.
It also provides for collaboration in the establishment of training centres and for capacities connected to industrial parks.
