Speakers at activities marking the 23rd Annual General Meeting of Shareholders (AGM) of the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank’s) on 22 July 2016 in Mahe, Seychelles, said that the visa regime operating across Africa was one of the greatest impediments to the growth of intra-African trade.

Wale Tinubu of Oando Group of Nigeria, Tony Elumelu of Heirs Holdings, former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, Dr. Paul Fokam of Afriland First Bank, and Jean-Paul Adam, Minister of Finance, Trade, and Blue Economy, of Seychelles, among others, were almost unanimous in arguing that the requirement for visas for travel by Africans to other African countries made it extremely difficult for business people to travel around the continent to conduct business.

In presentations during the meeting of Afreximbank’s Advisory Group on Trade Finance and Export Development in Africa, they noted that only a handful of countries, including Seychelles, had removed the requirement for visiting Africans to obtain visas before traveling in. They stressed the urgency for all African countries to abolish visa requirements for short-term travels.

Chief Obasanjo said that the reasons often adduced for the visa requirement did not stand scrutiny as such short term travel for business posed little security risk. There had also been no evidence that countries that had implemented visa-free travel had been overrun by any mass influx of people.

He commended the recent introduction of a common African passport by the African Union, saying that “it will help movement of people and, consequently, intra-African trade”.

The speakers also stressed the need for African governments to support local entrepreneurs and to create champions to drive trade across the continent, heaping credit to Chief Obasanjo for his support to the private sector during his tenure as President of Nigeria when he encouraged many entrepreneurs to participate in the country’s economic development.

In a presentation titled “Can Intra-African Trade Unlock Africa’s Industrial Potential”, Prof. Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize winner in economics and Professor at Columbia University in the United States, said that intra-regional trade could help African countries achieve necessary economies of scale.

“The development of regional value chains can pave the way for ease of entry into global value chains and enhance the integration of the region into the global economy,” argued Prof. Stiglitz.

He said that Africa’s priority should be trade and the implementation of appropriate industrial and trade promotion policies to take advantage of the window of opportunities presented by the major changes occurring in the global economic landscape.

The changes included the emergence of China as a very large and rapidly growing market for African exports, and not just for its natural resources, and the rising wages in that country which was creating “space” in for labor-intensive, simple manufactures that Africa could easily occupy, and eventually, for less labor-intensive and more complex manufacturers, he said.

Earlier, in an opening statement, Dr. Benedict Oramah, President of Afreximbank, said that greater intra-African trade would foster unity and put Africa on the path to industrialization, sustained economic growth and structural transformation and greater relevance in global affairs.

“Boosting intra-African trade will also reduce the exposure of the region to recurrent commodity price shocks,” he said, adding that Afreximbank had decided to promote intra-African trade to serve as the pivot around which the continent’s developmental aspirations would revolve.

The AGM activities began on Wednesday with the seminars of the Advisory Group on Trade Finance and Export Development in Africa, which lasted through Thursday and were followed, also on Thursday, by a trade exhibition and an investment forum focused on investment opportunities in Seychelles. The activities will end on Saturday with the formal Annual General Meeting of Shareholders of the Bank.

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Afreximbank supports African trade with over $15 billion of annual financing, AGM participants hear

With the more than $15 billion provided annually to African businesses, the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) is achieving its mandate of financing, promoting and expanding intra and extra-African trade, participants heard today in Mahe, Seychelles, at the opening of activities marking the 23rd Annual General Meeting of Shareholders of the Bank.

Danny Faure, Vice President of Seychelles, said during the opening of three days of seminars and meeting of the Advisory Group on Trade Finance and Export Development in Africa, that Afreximbank’s services were reaching beneficiaries from all sectors of the African economy, varying in size from small and medium enterprises to large conglomerates.

According to Mr. Faure, the seminar theme of “Intra-African Trade and the Blue Economy as Catalysts for Economic Transformation” highlights the importance that governments have placed on intra-African trade as well as the call by the United Nations for the conservation and sustainable development of the Blue Economy.

He said that the potential for trade in Africa was vast but that the Blue Economy should not just be for providing cheap raw materials to more industrialised countries. It should also boost the local production of value added goods and services.

Dr. George Elombi, Afreximbank’s Executive Vice-President for Corporate Governance and Legal Services, said that the Blue Economy could serve as an important channel for diversifying the African economy and could be a key pillar for national economic growth and sustainable development

Auxiliary industries associated with the Blue Economy offered opportunities to boost Africa’s intra-regional trade, he continued.

Dr. Elombi argued that Africa should be the world’s next frontier for industrialization, especially with the ongoing process of delocalization and manufacturing outsourcing in China. In his view, Africa must resolutely address the challenges of industrialization in order to facilitate the continent’s integration into global value chains.

In a plenary presentation, Prof. Ibrahim Gambari, a former Under-secretary-General of the United Nations, reiterated the importance of pursuing economic integration in Africa in order to achieve economic development.

He said that through integration, Africa would achieve the creation of larger markets, noting that with their relative small size, many African countries were just too small to be able to stand as viable markets on their own.

In introducing the seminars, Dr. Hipolyte Fofack, Afreximbank Chief Economist, said that they had been planned to provide opportunity for reflection on the challenges facing African economies in a context of increased global volatility and weakening global growth and to explore options for taking full advantage of opportunities.

Among those scheduled to address participants during the four days of activities are former President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria; Prof. Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize winner in economics; Prof. Justin Lin, a former World Bank Chief Economist and Director, New Structural Economics and Honorary Dean of the National School of Development, Peking University, China; Liu Liange, President of the China Exim Bank; Arni Mathiesen, an Assistant Director-General of the FAO and former Minister of Finance of Iceland; Tony Elumelu, Chairman of Heirs Holdings ltd., Nigeria; Ahmed El Sewedy, President of El Sewedy Industries, Egypt; and Dr. Paul Fokam, Chairman of Afriland First Bank Group.