Egypt’s Minister of Trade and Industry Nevine Gamea has held a digital meeting with President of the African Export and Import Bank (Afreximbank), Benedict Oramah, to discuss strengthening cross-border trade in the continent.
During the meeting, the two sides also reviewed the bank’s current and future projects and programmes in the Egyptian market, in addition to the bank’s role in supporting African economies to face the negative effects of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
Gamea stressed the government’s keenness on developing cooperation programmes, joint projects, and partnerships, with the bank at the governmental and business levels. This comes particularly as the bank is one of the main financing institutions in Africa.
The minister noted the importance of concerted efforts by countries across Africa to achieve continental economic integration, and face the current global economic challenges.
She said that the meeting dealt with the bank’s current and future initiatives in Africa, which included the organisation of the second session of the African Intra-Trade Exhibition which will be held in the Rwandan capital Kigali during the month of September 2021.
Egypt, represented by a number of ministries, government agencies, as well as the banking and private sectors, seeks to successfully participate in the exhibition in a way that guarantees the promotion of all Egyptian initiatives. It is hoped that the exhibition will also help present the modern image of Egypt to African visitors, in order to reinforce the country’s pioneering role in the continent.
She indicated that the bank aims to spread awareness of its initiatives, and assess the extent to which the Egyptian private sector benefits from the bank’s initiatives and platforms.Most importantly, the initiative also looks to establish supply chains across the continent for cars.
Gamea said that her ministry had proposed to Afreximbank that it will provide training programmes for professionals from across Africa.
This would take place with the aim of forming links between government officials and representatives from Africa’s private sector.
This would ensure maximum benefit from the positive role that these professionals could play as ambassadors for Egypt’s role and its industry in the continent.
The minister added that the two sides discussed the bank’s initiative to establish African export companies in light of the field work it conducted in a number of African countries, including Egypt. This occurred via holding preparatory meetings with a number of government agencies and the private sector.
For his part, Oramah affirmed his bank’s keenness to support Egyptian companies against the negative repercussions of the coronavirus.
This support would extend to helping them strengthen their commercial relations with their partners across Africa.
He pointed out that the bank is currently working to prepare an initiative to establish the African Trade and Investment Promotion Agency, which will set up a coordinated African system for trade and investment promotion.
The agency will also be involved in developing investment strategies, pushing African supply chains, providing capacity-building services for investment promotion agencies, and changing investors’ view of Africa. With the aid of technological platforms, these efforts will work towards changing the general view of Africa into a continent that is an important investment site.
