| The African Development Bank has approved a $14.12 million facility to support Nigeria’s membership in the African Trade Insurance Agency (ATI).In a statement posted on its website, it is critical and mandatory steps that will enable ATI commence its operations in Nigeria.Nigeria, as Africa’s largest economy, joins 14 other African countries that have already signed up to ATI membership. According to AfDB, once membership formalities are finalized, Nigeria could benefit from gross political and commercial risk insurance cover on total investments and trade amounting to over $5 billion by 2020.The approved facility complements ongoing and planned interventions geared at building institutional capacity and improving the resilience of the Nigerian economy.Joining ATI will enable Nigeria to leverage its position to mobilize additional resources to finance trade, especially importation of essential goods such as medicines and communications equipment, to rehabilitate basic infrastructure and strengthen the country’s productive sector. ATI’s mandate is to provide medium to long term credit and political risk insurance, as well as other risk mitigation products to its member countries and related public and private sector actors. These products directly encourage and facilitate foreign direct investment as well as local private sector investment in regional member countries and intra- and extra-African trade.ATI catalyzes private sector investments in infrastructure projects, thereby promoting economic integration of participating countries into regional markets. According to the Director in AfDB’s Financial Sector Department, Stefan Nalletamby, “The Bank seeks to achieve its ambitious development mandate by working with and through other strategic partners, and where possible, by supporting the development of strong and viable African institutions such as ATI. This financing scales up the work of ATI by supporting the beneficiary RMCs to become members.”African Trade Insurance (ATI), is a pan-African institution that provides political risk insurance to companies, investors, and lenders interested in doing business in Africa. Formed in ATI has grown into a major global player in the export credit agency landscape supporting over $ 22.96 billion worth of trade and investments in the continent. |
