The Acting Director, Trade Facilitation & Intra-African Trade Bank (IATF) , Dr. Gainmore Zanamwe has said Afrexim Bank ,African Export -Import Bank is focusing on investing in African Ports, seaports and Inland dry ports. He said the Bank has invested in a number of African countries.
While addressing Ship owners operating in the Africa domain, Association members, and other key stakeholders during the African Shipowners Association (ASA) quarterly webinar on 25th October, 2024, he said a lot needs to be done in terms of investing in the ports as some ports are congested, shallow and lack technology.
He stated that there is need for warehouses that should be put in place to facilitate the aggregation of goods and moving them to the final destinations. To achieve this, Zanamwe said Afreximbank has been collaborating with a number of partners including African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), Maritime Organization of West and Central Africa (MOWCA) and other African maritime organizations.
Speaking about ship building, he said Afrexim Bank will provide financial support for the ownership of vessels.
“We can also move our goods under the AfCFTA using the African vessels. Afrexim Bank has the financial resources .We will work with our sister financial institutions to address the challenges in this sector. We should build our vessels in Africa rather than import them from somewhere else. We should be able to work with the AfCFTA in creating a framework that will allow the manufacturing of vessels. We should be able to come out with some regulations and policies that will tackle the bottlenecks in the maritime sector.
“In addition to the millions of dollar Afreximbank has provided to support the maritime sector in terms of Port vessels is the provision of the submarine facility which can help to acquire or build vessels.”
The Ag. IATF revealed that Afreximbank is working towards engaging African Investors through the Africa Direct Investment (ADI).
” We are trying to prioritize what we call Africa Direct Investment (ADI). We believe that there are sufficient people here in Africa that are investors and are willing to put money into the maritime sector. We just need to work together to create the environment for that ADI.”
” We have also put in place what we call the Africa Trade Distribution Company (ATDC).It is a continental trade company that is going to provide marketing intelligence to support the production and aggregation of goods that are produced in Africa.We will have warehouses throughout the continent that will be receiving goods and the idea is to locate those warehouses in strategic key ports.”
“There will be what we call intra-African maritime route that will be able to carry those goods for example from South Africa to Egypt or from Morocco to Namibia”
He announced that to reduce logistics cost ,Afreximbank has developed an African collaborative strategy guarantee scheme and it is a board that is available to all the key players in the maritime sector.
“We have been engaging with a number of our shipping lines to ensure that they can also assist the strategic board. We have provided about $1 billion in terms of this strategic board to allow goods to move throughout the continents and reduce the cost. We have provided a container guarantee that we are piloting in East Africa”
