The African Export-Import Bank has indicated that plans were ongoing to support Nigeria and some other African countries with $25 billion facility within the next three years.
The Bank’s President, Dr Benedict Oranma, gave this hint during a media chat at the sidelines of the bank’s annual meeting in Abuja.
He said that the funding support for the various countries would help them in the implementation of the African Continent Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) and by implication, enable the bank to promote trade and investment in the continent.
Oranma pointed out that the implementation of the AfCFTA would accelerate the integration of African markets, foster regional value chains and promote dynamic comparative advantage across the continent for certain categories of goods.
He explained that the seminar was organised as part of a comprehensive suite of interventions the bank had designed to support the AfCFTA and intra-African trade, including a strategy to disburse $25 billion in support of intra-continental trade between now and the end of 2021.
According to him, the AFREXIM Bank is also initiating measures to facilitate trade by finalising the African payment settlement system that will provide a clearing platform for payment system in the region.
The banker hinted that as a demonstration of their commitment to facilitate trade payment system in the continent, all the 55 African countries had signed a treaty for the bank to implement the payment system.
“As we do this across the 55 countries in Africa, we will create a notional currency and from a multilateral angle, the use of foreign currency will trend towards zero and if this works right, it will create a platform for single currency in Africa”, Oranma said.
By official estimates, the AfCFTA is projected to potentially increase intra-African trade by 52.3 per cent from the current 19 per cent.
So far, 44 out of the 55 African countries had endorsed the pact which would enable them to form a $3 trillion continental free-trade zone, involving 1.2 billion people.
Nigeria is among the 11 countries yet to sign the pact. However, President Buhari had been granted approval on March 14 this year by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) to sign the agreement.
The AfCFTA identifies seven priority action clusters for its implementation. These include, trade policy, trade facilitation, productive capacity, trade-related infrastructure, trade finance, trade information, and factor market integration.
