Mohamed Maait, Egypt’s Minister of Finance, held a bilateral meeting with the CEO of the Africa Finance Corporation (AFC), on the sidelines of their participation in the annual meetings of the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB), held in Sharm El-Sheikh, under the theme: “Beyond Recovery: Resilience and Sustainability.”
Maait stressed that Egypt will take all executive and legislative measures to expedite Egypt’s joining and membership of AFC this year.
The two parties discussed mechanisms for coordinating African visions during the current global economic conditions, in which the repercussions of the Coronavirus are mixed with the negative effects of the war in Europe. The meeting aims to reduce the increasing cost of financing development investments, with the successive global fluctuations.
The two sides also reviewed the details of the Ministry of Finance’s steps for Egypt joining AFC, and the services provided by the Corporation, such as financing infrastructure projects, oil, gas, heavy industries, communications, aviation, and ports.
Maait called for studying establishing joint African platforms for selling goods and hedge funds to protect African economies from the repercussions of the global economic crisis.
The Minister reviewed the Egyptian experience in issuing the first public offering of sovereign green bonds in the Middle East and North Africa, with a value of $750m in September 2020, which put Egypt on the map of sustainable financing for the green economy. He pointed out that Egypt obtained the first green financing in November 2021 at an amount of $1.5bn from a group of international and regional commercial banks, with a subscription that achieved high levels of demand, and a coverage ratio of more than three times.
