The opportunities for trade and investment in Chad are palpable – and yet they are too often overlooked or neglected. Indeed, despite an economy primed and poised for accelerated economic growth, the country’s share of intra-African exports in 2019 stood at a paltry 0.1% – clearly indicating that, supply-side constraints and information gaps around Chad’s economic landscape persists, so too does its trade with its neighbours suffer.
On the 25th of August 2021, the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) in collaboration with Chad National Agency for Investments and Exports (ANIE), hosted a Trade and Investment Promotion Forum, entitled “Promoting Intra-African Trade and Investment: Boosting Chad’s Trade and Investment with Africa”. The Forum’s express purpose was to elucidate the various trade and investment opportunities (highlighting on key sectors) available in Chad, and to share with stakeholders, including potential investors, Afreximbank’s large array of products and initiatives that can support and enable trade with a crucial African state.
Opening the Forum, Ms. Kanayo Awani, Managing Director of Afreximbank’s Intra-African Trade Initiative, stressed that the speed of Chad’s advance towards inclusive prosperity of economic growth lay in its ability to deeply integrate its economy within a wider regional bloc. Afreximbank’s commitment to intra-African trade and investment can elevate the economic progress of African states through cultivating a truly dynamic pan-African and intra-African ecosystem of trade and investment. Ms. Awani further explained how the dawn of AfCFTA – with its combined 1.2 billion people and GDP of over $3 trillion – makes the task of integrating trade all the more opportune and urgent.
Alongside presentations from a bench of Afreximbank’s management – namely Ayman El-Zoghby, Senior Manager, Intra-African Trade Initiative; Papa Dieye, Consultant, MANSA; and Simeon Balogun, Consultant, Trade Information – the audience were addressed by various leading figures from ANIE, including its Director General, Nassour Mahamat Delio.
The organisation of such Forums forms a crucial facet of Afreximbank’s strategy to promote intra-African trade and support the trade and investment activities of African countries.
