Abuja, April 11, 2025 – The African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) has disbursed $50 billion dollars in financial support to various sectors of Nigeria in the last 10 years.
Benedict Oramah, its President, said this in Abuja on Thursday at the inauguration of Afreximbank African Trade Centre (AATC).
He listed the beneficiary sectors as energy, infrastructure, manufacturing, healthcare, transport and financial services.
Orama said the bank’s support to Nigeria’s financial services industry stood at $19 billion in the last 10 years which “has helped to deepen and expand the sector and elevated their impact on the local economy.”
He said the bank was also set to inaugurate a $750 million 500-bed African Medical Centre of Excellence (AMCE) in Abuja in June.
The Afreximbank boss said the 500-bed medical centre would be a quaternary medical facility built to avail top-class care to Africans in the vital areas of oncology, cardiology, and haematology.
He listed other interventions by the bank in Nigeria to include the operationalisation of the African Quality Assurance Centre (AQAC) in Ogun State.
Oramah said the centre was designed to ease quality infrastructure constraints of exporting agricultural and value-added goods into regional and international markets.
He said similar projects were underway in Imo and Kaduna states.
Oramah said the bank and the African Petroleum Producer’s Organisation (APPO) facilitated the development of the Africa Energy Bank in Nigeria after it was selected to host the bank in 2024.
He said the energy bank was also expected to address the financing constraints in the oil, gas and other energy sectors.
“The Energy Bank will position Nigeria as the continental hub for mobilising energy financing.”
Oramah said a special economic zone was being developed by Afreximbank’s investee company and Arise Integrated Industrial Platform in Ogun State.
“This over 300-million-dollar project is being developed to promote export manufacturing and similar projects are expected in Cross Rivers, Imo, Enugu and Kano states.”
Mr Oramah said the bank’s financing support to Nigeria had also helped to boost the oil refining capacity to about 1.2 million barrels per day.
He said Afreximbank had assisted Nigeria to boost urea fertiliser production to 7.5 million tonnes per annum from under four million tonnes in 2019.
“We expect urea capacity to rise to about 11 million tonnes by 2027 when Dangote Petrochemical company opens the new lines under development.
“These are remarkable and are contributing significantly to Nigeria’s non-oil export revenues.”
He said Afreximbank was also investing in growing the country’s creative sector, through credit lines support, capacity-building initiatives and market access opportunities.
Mr Oramah said recently the bank opened a dedicated 200 million facility to support the sector under an ongoing partnership with the Federal Ministry of Culture and Creative Industry.
He said the support had helped Nigeria to boost the export of its creative content to the rest of Africa and the world while boosting youth employment.
“These projects and interventions add to the significant investments committed by Afreximbank since its inception some 32 years ago.
“I am most pleased to put on record that the relationship between the Bank and the Federal Government of Nigeria has been truly mutually beneficial and most cordial.
“Over the last three decades, successive governments have accorded unflinching support to Afreximbank by responding most positively to capital calls.
“Also creating a congenial environment for its smooth operations while providing the bank significant domestic policy support that helped to execute many of the development programmes in Nigeria,” he said.
