The President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Akinwumi Adesina, has announced plans of expending an additional $2 billion to support infrastructure development that will boost the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) over the next two years.
The AfDB held its virtual 2021 annual meeting on Friday.
The trade pact between African countries commenced on January 1, it is intended to establish a single market for the free flow of capital, goods, people, and investments to further deepen the economic integration in the continent.
“For the potential to be realized fully, it is very important for the private sector to play a big role and the AfDB is supporting the AfCFTA to do that,” Adesina said.
“You cannot trade if there is no infrastructure to trade; roads, rails, ports, highways. Those are the things the AfDB has been doing. We did not wait for the AfCFTA.
“In the next two years we expect to spend an additional $2 billion on AfCFTA related infrastructure to further deepen regional integration.”
The AfDB chief Adesina noted that between 2016 and 2019, the bank expended $40 billion on infrastructure development across the continent.
He further said the AfCFTA must be an industrialised and manufacturing zone for high valued manufactured products for wealth creation.
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