The African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) expects to attract up to $1 billion in financing and investments to support trade activities and infrastructure development, including industrial parks and logistics facilities, in Togo, Bank President Dr. Benedict Oramah has said in Lomé.
Speaking on Monday after meetings with Togolese President Faure Gnassingbé and several ministers, Dr. Oramah, who led a mission of business leaders to discuss trade and investment opportunities, said that Afreximbank saw opportunities to “participate in the financing of trade activities and logistics infrastructure, as well as industrial parks in Togo, for projects that are likely to span from $500 million to $1 billion”.
He described Togo’s economic vision as being in line with Afreximbank’s strategy to promote intra-African trade and intensify the continent’s industrialization and pledged the Bank’s readiness to provide financing to promote trade and the development of trade-facilitating infrastructure in Togo.
The President said that following Togo’s joining as an Afreximbank participating state in May, the Bank was now able to fully deploy its programmes to support its growth sectors.
In a meeting with Sani Yaya, the Minister of Economy and Finance, President Oramah said that the accompanying business leaders were keen to explore opportunities to set up joint ventures and to invest into concessions.
During another meeting, Ninsao Gnofam, the Minister of Infrastructure, described the Lomé port as the driving force for Togo’s trade growth and as a sub-regional economic integration tool, serving as the transit point for more than 80 per cent of the country’s trade flows and servicing nearby landlocked countries like Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger.
The meetings with Marc Ably-Bidamon, the Minister of Mining and Energy, and Ouro-koura Agadazi, his Agriculture counterpart, focused on electricity projects and value-addition in the mining and agriculture sectors. Dr. Oramah said that opportunities existed to leverage on the expertise of leading African firms for large-scale integrated energy equipment and services.
He said that the Bank could use its arrangement with international partners to finance the supply of mining and agricultural equipment and to set-up processing facilities for potash for fertilisers, while African oil and gas firms could come in the construction of storage and logistics facilities for petroleum products.
With Bernadette Legzim-Balouki, the Minister of Trade, Industry and Tourism, the delegation was presented with tourism and hospitality projects, including the construction of luxury leisure resorts and conferencing facilities along the Togolese coastline and the building of eco-friendly bush and wildlife resorts on sustainable development concepts.
Dr. Oramah said that the Bank would explore how it’s Construction/Tourism Relay Facility, which is designed to provide financing to equip Africa with world-class tourism facilities, could be implemented in Togo in collaboration with business leaders and investors.
The delegation also met with Cynthia Gnassingbé, the Secretary General of Togo Invest, the country’s sovereign investment authority, who said that the Togo Corridor Project, a key pillar of the National Strategy for Accelerated Growth and Youth Employment, sought to unlock Togo’s economic potential by sourcing investment in the construction of large-scale transport, power and logistics infrastructure.
In addition to the Afreximbank officials accompanying the President, the delegation included business leaders from the energy, oil and gas, financial services, agricultural and manufacturing sectors in Egypt, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, and Belarus.
