Global financial architecture must change on initiative — Osei-Asare

The Minister of State at the Ministry of Finance, Abena Osei-Asare, has stated that the current global financial architecture can be changed only when Africans, particularly governments and financial institutions, take the initiative to effect the change through collaboration and a united front.

“Many have pointed to the inherent biases in the global economic order as obstacles to our efforts. However, reforming the global economic architecture is deeply linked to us taking control of our destiny,” she said.

“This requires us to harness the spirit of unity and collaboration to ensure that our economic progress is driven by our aspirations and not merely as an incidental outcome of the economic goals of others,” Mrs Osei-Asare added.

The Minister of State said this in her opening remarks as the chairperson of the 31st Annual Meetings (AAM) of the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) and the 3rd AfriCaribbean Trade and Investment Forum (ACTIF) underway in Nassau, The Bahamas, on the theme, “Owning Our Destiny: Economic Prosperity on the Platform of Global Africa”. 

Cohesion

She proposed that governments and the private sector worked with cohesion and a united sense of purpose to ensure that efforts by the AU to reposition African Financial Institutions under the Africa Club initiative was achieved to reshape the destiny of Global Africa.

The Africa Club is an initiative under the chairmanship of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo at the African Union to bring member financial institutions together to find solutions to financing challenges and help support Africa’s sustainable economic development and integration objectives.

The ultimate aim is to bring a change to the global financial architecture. On global Africa, Mrs Osei-Asare commended the AfreximBank for holding the annual meetings in the Bahamas and making the African Carribean Trade and Investment Forum an integral part of the annual meetings and called for more efforts to strengthen the linkages between Africa and the Carribean.

Afreximbank

Mrs Osei-Asare also commended Afreximbank for the impressive financial performance which has culminated in improved dividend earnings and, more importantly, impactful projects for Africans globally.

She said the impressive results of the Afreximbank highlighted the need for strong African institutions and underscores the importance of continued support to such institutions and safeguarding their success.

“Countercyclical and strategic investments {from the Bank} have been vital in enabling countries to weather the recent perfect storm of cascading crises. Such is the value of a dynamic multilateral African development institution. And is another reason not to only inject capital, but jealously guard its success,” she said

Afreximbank net income went up by 66 per cent to US$756.1 million in 2023, a significant increase from US$455.3 million achieved the previous year. Shareholders’ equity grew robustly by 17.55 percent to US$6.1 billion, bolstered by US$349.8 million in new equity contributions. 

The Minister of State disclosed that based on these impressive performance, the board was proposing to give some of its profit to shareholders through a dividend declaration of $264.6 million, up from the $159.3 million declared last year.

She called on shareholders and all stakeholders to do everything to empower Afreximbank whose potential she described as “limitless” to propel global Africa to meet its rightful destiny.

The meeting, the first to be held in the Carribean, and the third time it is being held outside Africa brought together over 2000 delegates, including a record 25 heads of states and governments, including H E Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.

Other speakers at the opening ceremony include Philip Davis, Prime Minister of The Bahamas and Benedict Oramah, President and Chairman of the Afreximbank.

AAM and ACTIF are attended by business and political leaders, banking industry professionals, trade and trade finance practitioners and other parties involved in economic development from across Africa, the Caribbean and beyond.

The meetings have been ranked among the most important gatherings of economic decision makers in Africa and CARICOM.