Intra-African trade: Afreximbank, CDC group sign $100m risk participation agreement

Ben Eguzozie, with wire copy

…as Nigeria yet to ratify AfCTA

In a practical move to kick-off its ambitious intra-African trade initiative, the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) on Saturday in Casablanca, Morocco, signed a $100-million master risk participation agreement with the CDC group Plc. to support Afreximbank’s Trade Facilitation programme.

Under the terms of the risk participation arrangement, CDC will provide unfunded risk participation to Afreximbank as the bank provides trade finance products that include trade confirmation services; trade confirmation guarantee; and irrevocable reimbursement undertakings.

Speaking during the signing ceremony, Amr Kamel, Afreximbank’s executive vice president for business development and corporate banking, said the agreement will support Afreximbank’s trade confirmation services under which the bank provides confirmation lines to African financial institutions to support their trade businesses and increase capacity to undertake trade finance transactions.

It will also support the Afreximbank trade confirmation guarantee programme which offers full guarantee to international banks on behalf of African financial institutions, with the aim of resolving the issue of lack of credit limit by international/confirming banks for the African counterparts or situations of limited credit limit due to capacity constraints, among others.

Meanwhile, Nigeria, Africa’s biggest economy is yet to ratify the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCTA), which has received wide acceptance across the continent.

According to Admir Imami, director, supply chain finance and trade finance of CDC, who signed on behalf of his company, said the CDC was excited at the opportunity to work with Afreximbank, and looked forward to many more joint projects and deals in the future. CDC Group Plc. is a United Kingdom development finance institution