The African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank), on Wednesday announced the launching of a project preparation facility aimed at increasing the availability of viable, well-prepared projects in Africa and making them bankable and attractive to investors.
The pan-Africa trade bank, tagged ‘Afreximbank Project Preparation Facility (APPF)’ stated that the facility was launched in Johannesburg, South Africa, on November 8 on the sidelines of the Africa Investment Forum.
According to the bank, the facility will provide technical and financial support to early stage companies in the preparation and development of projects from conception to bankability stage, the point at which such projects can attract interest from equity investors and debt financiers.
Afreximbank, in a statement, disclosed that the APPF was launched with an initial seed capital investment of up to $15 million.
Commenting during the launch, the President of the pan Africa trade bank, Prof. Benedict Oramah, said that the facility would support transactions that sought to implement logistical platforms that supported export growth and diversification or facilitated the assimilation of African commodities into global value chains, or increased the volume and flow of tradeable goods and services along Africa’s trade corridors.
In addition, Oramah said that the facility aligned with the bank’s mandate and strategy which seek to promote intra-African trade, and industrialisation and export development activities in the continent.
In his remarks at the event, the Chief Executive Officer of Harith General Partners, a leading pan-African infrastructure developer, Tshepo Mahloele, commended the APPF as “a bold step in the right direction to assist Africa to unleash its full potential through de-risking of investments early on in the project preparation cycle”.
Noting that the project preparation step is often overlooked in the pursuit of quick returns, Mahloele said that Harith had ensured efficient and professional preparation of infrastructure projects.
The project development expert lamented that Africa had long been at the mercy of poor planning, leading to infrastructure project backlogs that have limited GDP growth by at least 2 percent annually in the continent
He expressed the hope that the Afreximbank’s intervention would complement ongoing project preparation initiatives and culminate in shortening the project preparation cycle, thereby fast-tracking Africa economic development, he said.
Afreximbank Manager, Project Finance, Zitto Alfayo, said that the APPF would be operated on full cost recovery basis and would be primarily open to African governments, public-private partnerships and private corporates.
The bank listed the specific sectors of the APPF intervention as activities related to development of logistical platforms, such as industrial parks, value added projects supporting manufacturing and services exports, tradeable services, ICT and trade enabling infrastructure encompassing energy, transport and logistics sectors.
