AfDB approves $50 m loan for ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development

must begin frank discussions on current developments in Green Shipping initiatives which involve the use of alternative fuels with low or zero carbon, in place of fossil fuels -that is fast becoming the new way of shipping. To this end, she urged Africa’s Maritime Industry to be prepared for the cost rami cations of the impending transition to cleaner fuels to Ship-owners translating to increased freight rates. “I will urge MOWCA to consider the e ects of the market-based measures under discussion within the International Maritime Organisation on our economies. It would also be pertinent to identify possible ways to benet from any fund arising thereof, in order to minimize the e ects of the transition on all players, particularly Least Developed Countries LDCs) and Small Island Developing States (SIDS).

A Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, Herbert Krapa, has called on member countries to consider critically the incentives they give to investors, in order to ensure that they are smarter and would yield results in the long run.

Speaking at the rst Annual Assembly of African Investment Promotion Agencies summit in Accra, he said “We have taken some signi cant steps but now is the time to pay attention to investments that will ensure that AfCFTA thrives, that it takes o fully and that is why I mentioned in my remarks that it is happening at a very good time to see how they can streamline regulations, goods, resources, work with government institutions.

Dr. Paul Adalikwu, the Secretary-General of MOWCA disclosed that the organization has rmed up plans to set up the Mar- what we are doing is we have set up a coordination o ce and we are providing them with the systems, to ensure that they are able to trade under the AfCFTA, what they are doing is collecting data to allow the ministry to go to cabinet to design a special package for AfCFTA trade -power, cost of credit, infrastructure, all of those issues government is paying close attention to, so we can take advantage of the duty free, quota free export opportunities that is available.

We are fully ready, customs is a competent authority to provide the certi cate of origin and we have all of them, we want more of them to have the productive capacity to trade at scale so that they can take the bene ts of AfCFTA.” itime Development Bank to be located in Nigeria, of which MOWCA’s global pro le is being ramped up through her rm and active mutually rewarding links to the global International Maritime Organisation and the emergence of a pan-African Maritime organization. MOWCA’s objective is to serve the regional and international community for handling all maritime matters that are regional in character. MOWCA uni es 25 countries on the West and Central African shipping range. ment Promotions Agencies (IPAs) across the continent to take advantage of the relationships among member states to strengthen regional trade in order to make the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) a reality.

According to Mr.Grant, the time is ripe for the continent to chart a new path in the African Foreign Direct Investment(FDI) story as well as liberalizing tari s in Africa would unleash billions of dollars in untapped export potential and with plans under way to remove market frictions that hinder intra-Africa trade, AfCFTA is on course to increase intra -African trade by 81% by 2035.

By Eugene Davis

Ghana is ready in terms of institutional support, factories and private sector production,

The CEO of Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC) Yo Grant on his part rallied Invest-

He said “We the IPAs have decided to come together to go through what we believe should be the questions that we ask ourselves and to ensure we play a very critical role in ensuring that the AfCFTA becomes a re-

For us in Africa, we think the opportunity is real, we think it is looming right in front of us and we need to take advantage, and to do that we need to facilitate intra-continental investment to bring about intra-continental trade, so notwithstanding the problems we have today, those problems would be resolved, the world will go on and it will recover.

There is opportunity for us to add value to our raw materials and resources and leverage on the higher ends of the value

I dare say our private sector is ready and what all they need is redirection into where the opportunities are and they will elevate themselves and be a credible partner to economic

Emily Njeri Mburu-Ndoria, Director of Trade, AfCFTA indi-