Afreximbank sees opportunities in cotton sector …as it hosts partnership’s steering committee

 AFRICAN Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) has hosted a two-day meeting of the Steering Committee of the Partenariat pour le Coton (PPC), a global platform established to support transformation and value addition in the cotton-textile-gar­ment (CTG) sector in developing countries.

With an initial focus on the C4+ countries (Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, and Côte d’Ivo­ire), PPC aims to drive sustain­able transformation and value addition in the CTG sector by enhancing economic returns, cre­ating employment opportunities, and promoting economic, social and environmental sustainability.

Delivering the opening remarks at the meeting, held at Afreximbank Headquarters in Cairo Mrs Kanayo Awani, Exec­utive Vice President for Intra-Af­rican Trade and Export Develop­ment at Afreximbank, noted that development of the cotton sector presents significant opportunities to enhance economic growth across Africa.

The sector it said contributes between 45 and 60 per cent of GDP and foreign exchange earn­ings in some countries.

However, she highlighted a recent study by the Steering Committee which revealed that textile and garment manufactur­ing sector in some C4+ countries remained at a nascent stage.

“Therefore, to upgrade and integrate into the global cotton sector value chain, we must ad­dress a range of issues, including low yields and limited processing capacity, climate change and vari­ability, market fluctuations, global cotton prices, weak infrastructure and inadequate access to modern technology,” Mrs Awani said.

She emphasised that, as a member of the C4+ initiative, Afreximbank was committed to supporting African countries to move up the cotton value chain – transforming raw cotton into textiles and clothing.

Working with strategic part­ners, Afreximbank aims to help establish modern textile and gar­ment industries in C4+ countries and across the continent to real­ise the development aspirations of the African Union’s Agenda 2063 and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Mrs Awani noted that the Steering Committee’s delibera­tions were centred on mobilising capital and investment to trans­form the African cotton sector.

She highlighted several financial and non-financial instruments that Afreximbank could deploy to support this goal, including project prepara­tion funding, tailored financing and advisory solutions, debt and equity financing, export advisory services, SME support, insurance solutions, digital platforms to improve market access and com­pliance, and trade facilitation and investment promotion support.

“Through our active partici­pation in the Partenariat pour le Coton, we reaffirm our commit­ment to supporting Africa’s drive for sustainable industrialisation and local value addition. By working alongside partners, we are helping unlock critical invest­ments, strengthening technical capacity, and promoting sustain­able practices across the cotton sector,” Mrs Awani said.

The outcomes of this Steering Committee meeting represents an important step towards realising the C4+ countries’ vision of a globally competitive cotton-tex­tile-garment industry.

Afreximbank remains com­mitted to championing initiatives that create jobs, boost trade and drive inclusive economic trans­formation,” Mrs Awani informed participants during the meeting.

Emphasising the importance of the outcome in his opening remarks, Mr. Jean-Marie Pau­gam, Deputy Director-General of World Trade Organisation (WTO), and Chairperson of the steering committee said ‘I hope that the discussions over these two days will yield concrete results for the industrialisation and local processing of cotton in partner countries. We will be able to report these results to WTO members at our next discussion on cotton, scheduled for the 14 of May at the WTO, which will address all issues facing the cotton industry in the C4 and other developing countries.”

The meeting, which brought together key stakeholders working to advance sustainable industrialisation across Africa’s CTG value chain, also included the formal signing of an amend­ment to the Trust Fund Agree­ment between Afreximbank and UNIDO.

This amendment reinforc­es Afreximbank’s US$ 80,230 grant to finance a baseline study critical to the development of the cotton-to-textile value chain under the PPC – delivered with­in a WTO-FIFA cooperation framework.