The African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) says former President Olusegun Obasanjo will speak on African trade at the bank’s 24th Annual General Meeting of Shareholders (AGM) scheduled for June 28 in Kigali, Rwanda.
This was announced in a statement by the bank’s spokesman, Mr. Obi Emekekwue, on Wednesday, in Lagos.
Emekekwue said the President, African Development Bank (AfDB), Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, and Okechukwu Enelamah, Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment of Nigeria would also speak at the event.
He said Prof. Justin Lin, Director, Centre for New Structural Economics and Honorary Dean, National School of Development, Peking University, China and Ade Ayeyemi, Chief Executive Officer, Ecobank Transnational, would speak on integration.
He said that Paul Kagame, President of Rwanda, Anastase Murekezi, the Prime Minister and Claver Gatete, the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, among others, would address the four-day event.
According to Emekekwue, the theme of this year’s meeting is: Boosting intra-African trade and integration.
He said the event would feature a meeting of the Afreximbank Advisory Group on Trade Finance and Export Development in Africa, which would focus on Africa’s trade opportunities in a world of rising protectionism.
“There will be an investment forum to be hosted by the Rwandan Government while a trade exhibition will also take place on June 30,” he said.
Afreximbank is the foremost Pan-African multilateral financial institution devoted to financing and promoting intra- and extra-African trade.
The bank was established in October 1993 by African governments, African private and institutional investors, and non-African investors.
Its two basic constitutive documents are the Establishment Agreement, which gives it the status of an international organisation, and the Charter, which governs its corporate structure and operations.
Since 1994, it has approved more than 51 billion dollars in credit facilities for African businesses, including about 10.3 billion do0llars in 2016.
Afreximbank has total assets of 9.4 billion dollars as at April 30, 2016 and is rated BBB+ (GCR), Baa1 (Moody’s), and BBB- (Fitch). The bank is based in Cairo. (NAN)