The Intra-African Trade Fair (IATF 2023) is expected to generate intra-African trade and investment deals worth over $43 billion.
This is even as Afreximbank has urged Nigerian and African traders to leverage on the IATF platform to grow and expand their footprint in the region.
Executive vice president, Intra-African Trade Bank, Afreximbank Mrs. Kanayo Awani, who disclosed this at the Nigeria Intra-African Trade Fair (2023), high level business roadshow, on Monday, in Lagos, revealed that, the problem of information asymmetry is one of the largest obstacles to intra-African commerce, pointing out that, most traders on the continent are uninformed of the trade and investment opportunities that exist among one another but are more aware of those that exist outside the continent.
“If I were to ask a Nigerian footwear manufacturer to source leather, it is most likely he would look to South America for supply. Yet, countries like Ethiopia, Kenya, and Sudan have the supply capacity to meet this demand. How is a trader here in Lagos to know the needs of a consumer in Lusaka? West Africa alone import meat products worth more than $3 billion annually from Argentina and Australia while South Africa, Botswana, Mali, Namibia, Chad, and Sudan can supply a large proportion of this demand,” she lamented.
To overcome this dearth of trade and market information and support the implementation of the AfCFTA, the executive vice president said, the bank, the African Union (AU) and other strategic partners launched the IATF in 2018.
The IATF, which holds every two years, is a platform to connect buyers and sellers across Africa as well as investors to investment opportunities within the continent, and to address access to trade and market information as key enabler for intra-African trade, she posited.
The inaugural Trade Fair held in Cairo, Egypt in 2018 was a resounding success, which was followed by an even more successful IATF2021 hosted in Durban, South Africa in 2021, Awani averred, even as she disclosed that collectively, the two editions of the IATF saw participants come from 130 countries globally, with more than 2,500 exhibitors from 77 countries and generated over $74 billion in trade and investment deals, with Nigeria gulping over $18 billion of that figure.
Building on this success of the two previous editions, Awani said, IATF2023, which is scheduled to hold in Cairo, Egypt, from 9 to 15 November 2023, will again provide an opportunity for exhibitors to showcase their goods and services, engage in Business to Business (B2B) and Business to Government (B2G) exchanges, and conclude business deals.
“We are poised to attract more than 1,600 exhibitors from over 75 countries. We also expect over 35,000 participants from all African countries and rest of the world, including the Diaspora. We anticipate that IATF will generate intra-African trade and investment deals worth over $43 billion,” she further revealed.
Speaking on what Afreximbank is doing to boost Intra-African trade, the executive vice president averred that the bank is not only spearheading the IATF to support the AfCFTA, but is also at the forefront of supporting African trade and have developed several financing and facilitation instruments to support trade and investments.
Afreximbank intends to double its financing of intra-African trade to $40 billion on a revolving basis by 2026, up from $20 billion in 2021, she said, even as she disclosed that the bank is working with the AfCFTA Secretariat to put in place the AfCFTA Adjustment Fund to facilitate and provide support through financing, technical assistance, grants and compensation funding to AfCFTA State Parties and private enterprises to adapt to and effectively participate in the AfCFTA.
