African Development Bank tells Indian investors and officials: Africa’s outlook is positive!

Indian investors who are involved in investing in Africa have laid the groundwork. Officials called for Indo-African collaborations to go beyond government-to-government cooperation, and to encourage private sector involvement, to speed up Africa ‘s growth, during a recent virtual conference organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and its partners. 

The Conference was held on 30 July 2020 and was attended by more than 600 participants from over 45 countries in the area of Innovative Financing for Doing Business with Africa. Participants also represented companies, government, financial institutions and business development agencies from the Middle East, Europe and Asia, apart from Africa and India.

The additional secretary in the Department of Foreign Affairs of India, Akhilesh Mishra, urged the private sector to think about investing in young people and start-ups, as they have tremendous job creation potential. He indicated that African countries would need more targeting short-term funding, in addition to the long-term funds historically given as official development assistance. 

Speaking in the midst of the rise in consumer demand that Indian companies will not allow to miss, Bajabulile Swazi Tshabalala, Senior Senior Vice President and CFO of the African DC Group, highlighted African business potential. 

Tshabalala said that Indian industry was able to cooperate with the bank in areas like electricity generation, transmission, oil, agricultural processing, medical and pharmaceutical services, technology, transport and industrialisation. 

The Bank seeks to raise the number of bankable projects in Africa and has committed 100 million dollars for projects in low-income countries. She also aims to attract greater private sector involvement from all countries in these initiatives. 

David Rasquinha, Export-Import Bank of India’s Managing Director, stressed the need to broaden the Indian banking network in order to increase financial inflows into Africa. He said India and Africa might collaborate in health and pharmaceutical fields, the financial sector, and in the development of infrastructure. 

Nana Spi-Garbrah, head of the department for financing, co-financing and customer-solution of the African Development Bank, spoke about the bank’s ability, especially at the time of COVID-19, to mitigate risk for investors from abroad. 

The bank’s Partial Risk Guarantee (PRG) and Partial Credit Guarantee (PCG) were addressed by Spio-Garbrah, too, and updated to meet customer needs better. She listed the banking services, particularly the A / B credit product which enables B-lenders to profit from the preferred lender status of the bank. She also referred to the Co-Guarantee Network, a new partnership between four providers for risk mitigation and the African Union which pools its capacity collectively to de-risk African projects. 

A talk on the relationship between India and the Bank and the COVID-19 response facility was given by Takashi Hanajiri, the Head of Asia External Representation Office for the African Development Bank. Hanajiri noted that the Africa Investment Forum has tremendous potential and urged Indian partners to be interested in seeking opportunities for investment in Africa. 

Representatives of the ECOWAS Investment and Development Bank and the ABSA Bank also attended the forum, which presented their financial services and goods. The trialogue collaboration between India, Japan, and Africa on agriculture spoke to Escorts Limited, one of India’s leading engineering firms. 

The Indian Ministry for External Affairs, the African Development Bank, the Indian Export-Import Bank and other organizations sponsored the conference. 

The African Development Bank and India have been partners for a long time since the first African Development Fund (ADF) was entered by India in 1982, almost forty years ago. A year later, the African Development Bank became its owner.

Link to the full sessions: https://bit.ly/3g0gxyN

Data Source: African Development Bank Group (AfDB)