The African Export and Import Bank, together with the Secretariat of the Africa Continental Trade Area is making progress with moves to reduce the cost of transacting business among African Countries under the agreement.
Cost of doing business has been identified as a key challenge in promoting intra-African trade to unavailable common payment system for all the 54 countries.
However, speaking with Journalists in Accra, Secretary General at the African Continental Free Trade Agreement, Wamkele Mene hinted that the African Export and Import bank is helping to develop a common payment system which will lead to a reduction in transacting business among member nations.
“We are working as hard as we can to make sure that the pan African payments and settlements platform is rolled out and is up and running as early as possible next year. I’m not able to give time lines now because we are working with African Export and Import Bank.”
“However, we are fully conscious of the fact that it has to be up and running if we want to reduce the cost of transactions and the cost of trade in Africa. So, we are trying to make sure that if we roll out the trading date on 1st January 2021, the platform is rolled out at the same time. But it’s difficult to give a deadline but we are working as hard as we can to make sure we achieve that objective”, he emphasized.
African Export-Import Bank
African Export-Import Bank, also referred to as Afreximbank, is a pan-African multilateral trade finance institution created in 1993 under the auspices of the African Development Bank.
It is headquartered in Cairo, Egypt and its vision is to be the trade finance bank for Africa.
Its mandate is to finance and promote intra- and extra-African trade using three broad services.
These are Credit (Trade finance and Project finance), Risk Bearing (Guarantees and Credit Insurance) and Trade Information and Advisory Services.
Latest Stories
-
Chale Wote Street Art Festival: A call for artists ahead of 2024 edition
2 hours -
Floods: We’re exposed but my team and I are ‘running’ to catch up – Oppong Nkrumah
2 hours -
5 traits of sweet, committed men that may seem like red flags at first
3 hours -
We met on Twitter and our first date was a week-long road trip
4 hours -
The biggest mistake people make when meeting someone in person after talking online
4 hours -
I traveled 500 miles for a first date
4 hours -
My cousin saved my life and she never knew
4 hours -
Top UN court orders Israel to allow food and medical aid into Gaza
4 hours -
Fallen ‘Crypto King’ Sam Bankman-Fried gets 25 years for fraud
4 hours -
The architecture we have used to tackle housing deficit has not been robust enough – Oppong Nkrumah
4 hours -
Government suspends implementation of price Stabilisation and Recovery levy on petroleum products
5 hours -
Takoradi traders lament over low sales ahead of Easter
7 hours -
I’ve served Effia constituency well – Joseph Cudjoe
7 hours -
Michael Ampadu: One Student, One Tablet initiative will shape the future of education and innovation
7 hours -
I will partner you for development – Alan tells TUC
7 hours