Afreximbank will promote and drive value addition and strategic mineral processing as part of a seven-point plan to transform the continent, its new president, George Elombi, said.
Afreximbank will promote and drive value addition and strategic mineral processing as part of a seven-point plan to transform the continent, its new president, George Elombi, said on Saturday.
African countries, including Zimbabwe, are rich in the most sought-after minerals, which are only exported raw by multinationals and whose proceeds have not lifted these countries out of poverty.
In his inaugural address after being sworn in as the bank’s fourth president and chairperson of its board of directors, Elombi said the bank has “no appetite to finance the export of Africa’s raw commodities”.
“I know you will be sending text messages, calling our colleagues in the regional offices for financing. Let’s be clear, if you are calling them so that we go and mine our soils, send our young men deep into the mine so that we export the gold raw, manganese raw, the coltan raw, in the next 5 to 10 years, we are not interested in those,” he said.
“By transforming what we produce, building regional value chains, and fostering homegrown industries, we can create jobs, retain wealth, and drive growth across the continent.”
Elombi said the bank would establish a Strategic Minerals Development Programme to finance entire value chains, from extraction and refining to manufacturing finished components.
“Instead of simply exporting raw lithium from the Democratic Republic of Congo, for instance, we will finance factories to produce lithium-ion batteries locally, capturing much more value here at home and creating high-skilled jobs for our people,” said the banker, who has been with Afreximbank for nearly 30 years.
Instead of exporting raw bauxite from __ Guinea, Nigeria, Gabon, Cameroon, or South Africa, we will focus on domestic processing.”
The banker said there will be a focus on the deepening of intra-African trade and regional integration to anchor the value addition agenda.
Africa’s single market, the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), Elombi said, “represents a vital platform for advancing value addition and export manufacturing”.
Afreximbank will intensify efforts to break down trade barriers, strengthen cross-border infrastructure, and foster seamless movement of goods, services, people, and capital across the continent, he said.
Elombi said Afreximbank would focus on catalysing and building critical trade-enabling infrastructure, adding that a fragmented and dilapidated infrastructure network from roads and railways to ports, and power grids “remains a major bottleneck to intra-African trade and a significant driver of the high logistics costs on our continent”.
“We will accelerate investments in critical trade-enabling infrastructure projects that directly facilitate trade and connect African markets. This includes not just highways and rail lines, but also modernised seaports, expanded warehousing and inland container depots, renewable energy projects, and specialised logistics hubs and energy pipelines,” the banker said.
Elombi said his leadership will prioritise the creation of a shared integrated infrastructure ecosystem for trade, aimed at leveraging existing trade-enabling infrastructure capacity cost-effectively.
“Instead of each country building from scratch, we will catalyse the expansion of infrastructure in countries with ample capacity to serve neighboring nations that lack the resources to develop such facilities independently. This collaborative approach ensures that all countries, regardless of their current capacity, benefit from improved market access, enhanced connectivity, and lower trade costs.”
He said Afreximbank would leverage innovation and digital technology, which are potent forces for change in Africa’s economic landscape and offer a direct way to leapfrog persistent developmental challenges, dismantle trade barriers, improve efficiency, and create new growth opportunities.
“I will elevate artificial intelligence as a priority to leverage its transformative potentials in intra-African trade and regional integration, promote value-addition, industrial parks and smart manufacturing, create economic opportunities and growth, and enhance internal operations and efficiency,” Elombi said.
He proposed the creation of a pan-African digital currency, including a Stablecoin, to strengthen financial integration and innovation across the continent and to truly own our economic destiny in the digital age.
He said the bank would focus on mobilising Global African capital to work for Global African development.
“Too often, African wealth – whether held by our diaspora, our businesses, or our own governments’ sovereign funds – is invested elsewhere in the world. We will intensify efforts to connect this vast pool of capital from sovereign wealth funds, pension funds, diaspora investors, or private equity back to Africa’s growth,” Elombi said, adding that Afreximbank “will create innovative financial instruments, trusted co-investment platforms, and a pipeline of bankable African projects that allow African capital to flow into African opportunities”.
He said financial strength would be another focus area under his presidency of the bank.
Afreximbank shareholders in June set an ambitious goal to grow Afreximbank’s balance sheet to US$250 billion in 10 years.
“As we consulted further with a few African leaders — including His Excellency, the President of the Arab Republic of Egypt, a major shareholder and strong supporter of the bank — an even more ambitious target emerged. He challenged us to aspire to reach US$350 billion,” Elombi said, saying his administration “will rise to meet the expectations of our shareholders and the continent’s leadership”.
He said the growth would be achieved by riding on the bank’s focus on export processing and industrialisation — the engines of wealth creation and value addition.
“When we invest in processing, we add value; when we add value, we create wealth; and when we create wealth, we expand our capacity to reinvest. A growing base of retained earnings strengthens our balance sheet, enabling us to disburse more funds for high-impact projects, which in turn generate wealth and drive further growth,” he said.
Elombi said the bank would explore avenues to grow the capital base that include new shareholder equity, retained earnings, co-lending frameworks, and asset management “to multiply the resources we can bring to Africa”, but keeping an eagle eye on the bank’s stability and creditworthiness.
He said the bank would collaborate with like-minded development finance institutions to build a cohesive African financial ecosystem capable of delivering large-scale, cross-border solutions to Africa’s most pressing trade and development challenges.
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