Afreximbank to invest $2.5bn to boost Nigeria’s economy

The Afreximbank on Thursday in Abuja, says it will invest 2.5 billion dollars in Nigeria for infrastructural development, as well as maximizing the economy of the country.

The President/Chairman. Board of Afreximbank, Prof. Benedict Oramah, disclosed this when he led the delegation of the bank to visit the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Mr Boss Mustapha in his office.

“We decided that giving importance of Nigeria to the bank in terms of the share of membership of the bank, the pivotal role Nigeria is playing is the bank, and also the extent of activities we undertake in Nigeria.

“We decided that we should be coming periodically to brief the SGF that through him also, such briefing can be extended to the different agencies of government.

“So that as we implement our work, we will continue to receive the support we need,” he said.

According to Oramah, the Afreximbank since the past five years has done cumulative disbursements that is close to about 20 billion dollars in Nigeria.

“Today, we have the current transactions that on the implementation in Nigeria amount to 3.66 billion dollars. We have another 2.5 billion dollars in the pipeline,” he said.

He said that his mission to the SGF was to brief him on other intervention programmes in the areas of establishment of African Medical Centre for excellence and African quality assurance centre.

He said that it was also to intimate him on the plans to support Nigeria to begin to manufacture vaccines given the present COVID-19 situation in the country today.

In his response, Mustapha appreciated the numerous initiatives by the management of Afreximbank and their support given to Nigeria’s economy.

“Supporting the Nigerian economy in the way you are doing as evidenced in the initiatives that you have enumerated this afternoon.

“I’m glad that most of these were things I had cause to discuss with you a couple of times, and on occasions, particularly when I had singular privilege and honour to chair the annual general meetings in Moscow,” SGF said.

SGF said with credible infrastructural facilities Afreximbank had put in place in Nigeria would help to stimulate the nation’s economy, adding that Afreximbank’s institutional framework will address so many issues in Nigeria.

“So I want to thank you for this visit and for what you’re doing and continue to argue to do more, because Nigeria’s economy is on the trajectory of growth and sustainability.

“Now, we need every support from financial institutions that have the capacity and the knowledge to help us sustain the model gains that have been made,” he said.

According to him, in spite of the adverse effect of COVID-19, Nigeria has demonstrated that its economy is resilient, and is strong to have been able to exit a recession, though marginally in the fourth quarter of 2020.

The SGF, therefore, assured the Afreximbank delegation of Federal Government’s support in whatever areas it needed to boost its projects in the country.

It was reported that Afreximbank was established in 1993 by African Governments, African private and institutional investors as well as non-African financial institutions and private investors for the purpose of financing, promoting and expanding intra-African and extra-African trade.