Afreximbank signs strategic partnership with ITC to boost intra-African trade

Afreximbank signed a strategic partnership with the International Trade Centre (ITC) to train small-business owners and young entrepreneurs on the continent on boosting intra-African trade.

The training programme tagged, ‘How to Export within the AfCFTA’, is being launched as the new free-trade area comes on stream amid the economic strains of climate change and the coronavirus pandemic.

The training will give business owners the knowledge and skills they need to engage effectively in cross-border trade under terms of the emerging free-trade area for Africa. Intra-African trade is structurally low at 15 per cent (compared to Europe at nearly 70 per cent, for example), and the AfCFTA will open a market of 1.2 billion people.

“Against the backdrop of the current COVID-19 health and economic crisis, African micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) need support to take full advantage of the continental market,” ITC acting Executive Director Dorothy Tembo said. “Through this partnership, African businesses will have the opportunity to learn, plan and succeed in growing their business by taking full advantage of the AfCFTA.”

Kanayo Awani, Managing Director of Afreximbank’s Intra-African Trade Initiative, said that the initiative was necessary because increasing intra-African trade through exports of goods and services by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) was the cornerstone of the AFCFTA.