Afreximbank has reiterated its strong commitment to accelerating intra-African trade, industrialisation, and value-chain integration within the framework of the African Continental Free Trade Area.

The bank pledged enhanced trade-financing solutions and intensified policy support to ensure every African nation benefits fully from the implementation of the single continental market.

These commitments were announced in Abuja on Monday by Afreximbank’s Director of Trade Facilitation and Investment Promotion, Intra-African Trade and Export Development, Dr. Gainmore Zanamwe, during his keynote address at the AfCFTA Public Sector, Private Sector, and Press Summit.

In the speech, a copy of which was made available to journalists, Dr. Zanamwe emphasised that Afreximbank has purposefully developed a comprehensive range of innovative financing instruments aimed at unlocking unprecedented levels of trade and investment across Africa.

“Afreximbank designed a range of financing and trade facilitation instruments to support intra-African trade and the AfCFTA,” he said. “We disbursed $20n between 2017 and 2021 in support of intra-African trade and investment, and we are on course to double this to $40bn by 2026.”

He spotlighted two flagship initiatives, the Global Facility for Intra-African Trade Champions, and the Engineer, Procure and Contract Initiative—describing them as powerful catalysts for nurturing African industrial giants and significantly boosting the continent’s manufacturing and productive capacity.

Through INTRA-CHAMPS, Afreximbank offers tailored financing, risk-mitigation guarantees, strategic advisory services, partnership twinning arrangements, and ecosystem development support to high-potential companies ready to expand regionally and continentally.

According to Dr. Zanamwe, the programme is already delivering tangible results and reshaping Africa’s industrial landscape.

“Today, INTRA-CHAMPS has helped catalyse the pan-African expansion of several major industrial players,” he noted.

He cited ElSewedy Electric, the Egyptian-born multinational, which used Afreximbank’s financing and guarantees to expand into over 15 African countries, delivering critical power generation and infrastructure projects that directly enable intra-African trade.

He also highlighted the Dangote Group—one of Afreximbank’s longest-supported partners and what he called “Africa’s most iconic industrial conglomerate.”

With its vast cement, fertiliser, and refining operations now spanning the continent, Dangote is anchoring regional value chains and demonstrating the transformative potential of sustained trade finance.

Dr. Zanamwe stressed that these success stories powerfully demonstrate that African companies, when provided with the right financing, risk mitigation, and strategic support, are fully capable of spearheading and leading the continent’s industrial revolution.

“We are not just financing trade,” Zanamwe said. “We are laying the foundation for industrialisation, competitiveness and sustainable prosperity.”

Zanamwe underscored that Afreximbank’s prominent participation in the Public-Private-Press Summit is a clear manifestation of the bank’s steadfast dedication to making the AfCFTA fully operational and delivering tangible benefits across the continent.

“Our presence at this gathering—the P3 Summit—is a clear testament that Afreximbank is fully committed to making the single market under the AfCFTA a reality,” he declared. “We are committed to taking the AfCFTA from a mere legal instrument and using it to catalyse industrialisation and the development of regional value chains.”