{"id":41392,"date":"2019-11-21T09:45:04","date_gmt":"2019-11-21T07:45:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/west-africa\/cameroon\/africa-investment-forum-2019-african-development-bank-signs-250-million-risk-participation-agreement-with-absa-to-address-africas-trade-financing-gap\/"},"modified":"2019-11-21T09:45:05","modified_gmt":"2019-11-21T07:45:05","slug":"africa-investment-forum-2019-african-development-bank-signs-250-million-risk-participation-agreement-with-absa-to-address-africas-trade-financing-gap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/west-africa\/cameroon\/africa-investment-forum-2019-african-development-bank-signs-250-million-risk-participation-agreement-with-absa-to-address-africas-trade-financing-gap\/","title":{"rendered":"Africa Investment Forum 2019:  African Development Bank signs $250-million risk participation agreement with ABSA, to address Africa\u2019s trade financing gap"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div class=\"image_wrap\"><\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>The African Development Bank (https:\/\/AfDB.org\/en) has signed an unfunded $250-million Risk Participation Agreement (RPA) facility with ABSA &#8211; a pan-Africa financial institution with a solid presence in 12 African countries.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>The 3-year RPA facility was signed November 12, on the sidelines of the Africa Investment Form through its trade finance operations. Under this 3-year RPA facility, the Bank and ABSA will share default risk on a portfolio of eligible trade transactions originated by African Issuing Banks (IBs) and confirmed by ABSA.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Leveraging the Bank\u2019s \u00a0AAA rating, ABSA will underwrite trade transactions issued by African issuing banks across key sectors like agriculture, energy, and light-manufacturing with a special focus on Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SME\u2019s) \u00a0in fragile and low-income African countries. The Bank\u2019s commitment under the RPA is to assume up to 50% (and 75% in special cases) of every underlying transaction issued by the IBs, while ABSA will confirm such a transaction and bear not less than 50% of its underlying risk.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Working with strategic partners like ABSA, the Bank\u2019s \u00a0trade finance operations aim to facilitate inter and intra Africa trade by reducing the trade financing gap on the continent. Since 2013, the Bank\u2019s RPA program has supported over 16 issuing banks with about US$650 million \u00a0limits in Southern Africa alone, with special focus on SMEs and local corporates in manufacturing, agribusiness, import\/export and energy sectors.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>In the same period, the program\u00a0supported over $4billion in trade volumes across Africa, with $938 million of that being intra-Africa trade. Other trade finance instruments employed by the Bank include: (i) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.afdb.org\/en\/topics-and-sectors\/initiatives-partnerships\/trade-finance-program\/\" title=\"Trade Finance program\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Trade Finance Line of Credit (TFLoC)<\/a>\u00a0 (https:\/\/bit.ly\/2CRVxcv) \u2013 funded line provided to banks for the financing of exclusively trade-related transactions in Africa; and (ii) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.afdb.org\/en\/topics-and-sectors\/initiatives-partnerships\/trade-finance-program\/\" title=\"TFLoC\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Soft Commodity Finance Facility (SCFF)<\/a>\u00a0(https:\/\/bit.ly\/2CRVxcv) \u2013 funded instrument meant to support the financing of exports of soft commodities\u00a0across the continent.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe RPA facility is one of the tools employed by the African Development Bank to alleviate poverty and achieve robust economic growth and sustainable development on the continent through: increased trade facilitation of import-export activities of African local corporates and SME\u2019s; enhanced inter and intra-Africa trade; and regional integration,\u201d said Pierre Guislain, Bank Vice President for Infrastructure, Private Sector and Industrialization, \u201cThis is consistent with the Bank\u2019s High 5s focus to Industrialize Africa, Light up Africa, Integrate Africa, Feed Africa and improve the living standards of Africans,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p><i>Distributed by APO Group on behalf of African Development Bank Group (AfDB).<\/i><\/p>\n<p><strong>Media Contact:<\/strong><br \/>\nAmba Mpoke-Bigg<br \/>\nCommunication and External Relations Department<br \/>\nAfrican Development Bank<br \/>\nemail: <a href=\"mailto:a.mpoke-bigg@afdb.org\">a.mpoke-bigg@afdb.org<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Bleming Nekati<br \/>\nChief Trade Finance Officer<br \/>\nAfrican Development Bank<br \/>\nemail: <a href=\"mailto:b.nekati@afdb.org\">b.nekati@afdb.org<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/afdb.africa-newsroom.com\/press\/africa-investment-forum-2019-african-development-bank-signs-250million-risk-participation-agreement-with-absa-to-address-africas-trade-financing-gap?lang=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Source<\/a><br \/>\n<br \/>South Africa Today Africa \u2013 West Africa <a title=\"Cameroon\" href=\"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/category\/west-africa\/cameroon\/\">Cameroon<\/a> News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The African Development Bank (https:\/\/AfDB.org\/en) has signed an unfunded $250-million Risk Participation Agreement (RPA) facility with ABSA &#8211; a pan-Africa financial institution with a solid presence in 12 African countries. The 3-year RPA facility was signed November 12, on the sidelines of the Africa Investment Form through its trade finance operations. Under this 3-year RPA [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":188473,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[376],"tags":[31375,24313,7325,258,256,6287,4380,6423,7089,377,5989,12412,6284,12910,6018,257,7932,9590,6428,254,5979],"class_list":["post-41392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cameroon","tag-250million","tag-absa","tag-address","tag-africa","tag-africa-news","tag-africas","tag-african","tag-agreement","tag-bank","tag-cameroon-news","tag-development","tag-financing","tag-forum","tag-gap","tag-investment","tag-news","tag-participation","tag-risk","tag-signs","tag-south-africa-today","tag-trade"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}