President in Ghana for Afreximbank indaba
PRESIDENT Mnangagwa will today join other African leaders here in plenary sessions of the 30th African Export Import Bank (Afreximbank) meetings.
The President, who arrived in Ghana yesterday accompanied by Finance and Economic Development Minister Professor Mthuli Ncube and Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor Dr John Mangudya, will join his counterparts including Presidents Lazarus Chakwera of Malawi, Paul Kagame of Rwanda, Yoweri Museveni (Uganda), William Ruto (Kenya), Macky Sall (Senegal), Bola Tinubu (Nigeria) and Abdelmadjid Tebboune of Algeria among others in the plenary discussions.
According to Afreximbank, Heads of State and Government will participate in a plenary discussion on delivering the vision and the benefits of strong financial institutions.
The discussion seeks to come up with concrete strategies to ensure continental financial institutions can effectively fund Africa’s development.
“Highlights of the event include a meeting of the advisory group on trade finance and export development in Africa and the annual general meeting of shareholders of Afrximbank,” said the bank in its itinerary.
President Mnangagwa’s participation symbolises Zimbabwe’s strong support for the multilateral financial institution that has since been granted land in Harare to construct a state-of-the-art multi-million dollar regional centre.
The project, to house various support services including a trade data centre, technology incubation hub and hotel, is one of the Second Republic’s key milestone projects to stimulate investment and infrastructure development.
Some of notable figures drawn from other sectors include former African Development Bank president Dr Donald Kaberuka, secretary-general of the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) secretariat Wamkele Mene and African Union Commission commissioner for economic development trade, industry and minerals Ambassador Albert Muchanga.
President Mnangagwa welcomed in Accra by Zimbabwe’s envoy to Ghana Ambassador Kufa Chinoza.
The meetings also draw participation from top African businesspeople including Dangote Group chair Aliko Dangote, Eleswedy Electric of Egypt president Ahmed El Sewedy, Econet Global and Cassava Technologies founder Strive Masiyiwa and Whitaker Group president Adam Molai.
The meetings also celebrate three decades since the bank launched a bold initiative in pursuit of financing and advising African/Caribbean nations on development.
They come at a time Afreximbank has launched a bid to support a Pan African Payment and Settlement System, after its adoption by the African Union as an alternative transacting mode to the United States dollar, to underpin implementation AfCFTA.
Afreximbank is a multilateral financial institution mandated to finance intra-and-extra African trade in a bid to accelerate the continent’s industrialisation drive.
The bank has disbursed nearly US$90 billion between 2016 and 2022 to support trade and development in Africa.
The 30th annual meetings, which end on Wednesday, are being held under the theme: “Delivering the vision, Building prosperity for Africans”.-chronicle
