Harare - Zimbabwe is among Africa Export Import Bank (Afreximbank) countries due to benefit from a $25 billion industrial retooling loan facility which is set to revamp the continent’s manufacturers and place them on a competitive edge, according to a report by NewZimbabwe.com.
Afreximbank has been Zimbabwe’s biggest benefactor since the turn of the century, at a time when most global lenders had stopped extending fresh lines of credit to the southern African nation, either at the behest of Western countries that were livid over the country’s land redistribution programme or over defaulting on earlier loans.
Afrexim Bank’s regional chief operating officer, Humphrey Nwugo said Zimbabwean industries should take advantage of the $25 billion facilty.
“The bank is set to introduce a re-tooling facility for Zimbabwean companies in an effort to improve capacity and efficiency of local industry and this comes as the bank has set us a $25 billion trade finance facility to promote African trade.”
“The bank’s core business is to promote intra-African trade, pointing out that Africa trades more with Europe and the rest of the World than with itself as intra-Africa trade accounts for a mere 10 percent.
“The bank has therefore set up a department to focus on the promotion of intra-Africa trade. One of the key focus of the bank is to ‘de-commodify’ Africa Trade hence the need to support industrial development in Zimbabwe and the rest of Africa to value add, create more sustainable trade opportunities, and reduce vulnerability associated with trade in commodities,” Nwugo said in the report.
The bank launched Trade Debt-backed Securities (AFTRADES) which is a $100 million facility and associated instruments aimed at alleviating the liquidity challenges confronting the financial sector in Zimbabwe.
It also provided a $600 million line of credit to Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe to finance the central bank’s trade-related transactions and projects in Zimbabwe.
More recently, President of the Bank Dr Benedict Oramah announced that the Bank is arranging between $1 billion and $1.5 billion of funded and guarantee facilities to support businesses interested in investing in Zimbabwe.
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