The 30th Annual General Meetings of the African Export-Import Bank opened in Accra, Ghana on Monday with speakers highlighting the need for Africa to boost intra-African trade and integration in the face of the challenges resulting from the impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic and the adverse economic challenges due to the Ukraine crisis and other global conflicts.

The Afreximbank Annual Meetings, which will end on 21 June, is also being held to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the establishment of Afreximbank.

The Minister of Finance of Egypt and Chairman of the Afreximbank Annual Meetings, Mohamed Ahmed Maait, who was represented by Gamal Negm, Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Egypt, told participants that Africans must work collaboratively towards finding integrated solutions to the new challenges confronting the continent.

Maait lauded Afreximbank for playing a significant role in developing and implementing solutions to address the challenges confronting Africa and expressed the hope that AAM2023 would lead to even more constructive solutions to Africa’s problems, describing the Bank as one of the African institutions delivering on the African Union’s Vision 2063.

Earlier, Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr. Honorable Ernest Yedu Addison, delivering his welcome remarks, said that Ghana represented the most appropriate venue for the celebration of Afreximbank’s 30th anniversary, given the Bank’s role in developing and promoting African trade and the fact that Ghana was the home of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Secretariat.

Addison said that Afreximbank had been very supportive of Ghana and had, over the years, provided more than two billion dollars to support the Ghanaian economy.

He commended Afreximbank for the approach it adopted in its work which emphasised a collaborative approach in dealing with other continental institutions.

In his contribution, Secretary-General of the AfCFTA Secretariat, Wamkele Mene, said that with the inclusion of a vision for an integrated African market in the founding treaty of the OAU, the founding fathers of the AU had foreseen the need for Afreximbank.