Africa Export-Import Bank To Assist Ghana's Trade And Industry

Mr Jean-Louis Ekra, President of the Cairo-based Africa Export-Import Bank at the weekend said the Bank is ready to help industries to add value to their raw materials and facilitate trade between the continent and rest of the world.
    
He said Africa has a very low participation of between two-and-half and three percent in the current global trade despite her rich natural and material resources.
    
'Africa's share in the global trade is insufficient,' Mr Ekra said in a chat with journalists last Saturday, after he has met with Ghanaian President John Atta Mills, who is in Abuja, Nigeria for an ECOWAS summit.
    
Mr Ekra said his meeting with President Mills is to seek his guidance on how the Bank can develop its operations in Ghana with a view to developing intra-African trade and also trade between the continent and rest of the world.
    
He congratulated President Mills on his elections to the high office of President.
   
He said since its establishment in 1993, the Bank has been providing funding to its 34 member countries and their financial operators including Ghana, to develop trade and industries.
   
It also offers advisory services to member countries to boost the export sector.
    
Mr Ekra said the Bank is currently giving attention to the development of the mining industry in Ghana and has consequently provided credit lines to help develop the supply chain.
   
'Despite the existence of mining enclaves in Africa, they have very little or no links with the local economy,' Mr Ekra said, adding that such missing links form the focus of the Bank.
    
'We are trying to provide support for value addition to African exports to enhance their values. We have specific plans towards Ghana.'
    
Mr Ekra said the Bank has provided a line of credit of $40 million  to Merchant Bank of Ghana, based on its remittances abroad to help finance local entities and develop the local content of the mining sector.
    
The African Export Import Bank is providing another $40 million for the development of Ghana's export sector, he added.