‘IATF 2021 has offered unrivalled business opportunity’
The second edition of the Intra-Afri can Trade Fair (IATF 2021), Africa’s premier continental trade and investment event, opened on Monday November 15 in Durban, South Africa. Building on the success of IATF 2018 in Cairo, organizers of the fair, the Africa Export and Import Bank (Afreximbank) and their prime partners, are confident that the trade platform has fully delivered on its objectives. MOSES MICHAEL-PHIRI speaks to BENEDICT ORAMAH, the bank’s president and chairman of the board, who says the event has offered unrivalled business collaboration and networking opportunities for the 55 countries in Africa:
First, how important is this year’s Intra-African Trade Fair?
The fair is giving entrepreneurs, financiers, governments and regulators one platform to deliberate on trade acceleration and investment throughout the African continent.
Who has partnered the bank to make this event possible?
The Afreximbank is thankful to the African Union (AU) and the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Secretariat for making the IATF2021 possible, and the Government of South Africa for coming in to host the event here in Durban [at International Convention Centre in KwaZulu-Natal. If you recall, this event was supposed to take place in Kigali, Rwanda.
Who is attending this fair this year?
Well, the IATF 2021 has attracted over 10 000 attendees from across Africa with $40 billion of trade and investment deals set to be concluded at the event. On the second day, we witnessed huge investment deals being signed. And many more were signed on Wednesday and days to come.
So it is clear that the conference has offered people unrivalled business and commercial networking opportunities and, it’s our hope that it will boost intra-African trade and investment
What are the key features of the fair?
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This year’s IATF conference dives deep into a number of thematic areas. For instance, the IATF Youth Start-Up programme highlights the support needed for youth-owned start-ups and small and medium -sized businesses to thrive, including capacity development, mentoring, access to finance, supportive infrastructure, government policy and market linkages.
The Creative Africa Nexus [Canex] has provided a platform for Africa’s creative and cultural sectors to connect with policymakers, prominent investors, and thought-leaders in the creative sector.
Then, there is the IATF Automotive Show, which is showcasing Africa’s dynamic automotive sector, encouraging the continent’s car and car equipment manufacturers, assemblers, and component suppliers to find out more about other businesses and market opportunities.
Dedicated Country Days have allowed participating countries to showcase trade and investment opportunities, as well as any tourism and cultural attraction.
What challenges does Africa face to boost trade?
I think the major challenge that countries face in promoting intra-African trade is lack of access to trade information. Somebody who is in Ghana does not know what is happening in Burkina Faso. That is why many African countries, will import goods from outside Africa at a much higher cost, not knowing that the same goods and services are available at a lower price within Africa. So what we want to do is put an opportunity for African businesses to meet themselves to get to know what their neighbours [other African countries] have to offer, to begin to trust their counterparts in Africa.
Because the colonial history of Africa is one that saw the continent divided into 55 countries — small countries — that hardly trade with each other. The work is for us to begin to bring down the borders. And this trade fair is one very strong instrument we can use to bring down borders.
How does the Afriximbank intend to achieve this agenda?
I think one way to do it is for businesses to have access to information [about market opportunities within Africa] and they will start to see their businesses growing. People will start getting richer, because they are trading among themselves.
