Afrieximbank to pay $69m as dividend to shareholders

The African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) will pay a total of $69 million to its shareholders as dividend from its 2018 earnings, according to decisions reached during the annual general meeting of shareholders of the bank which ended in Moscow on Sunday.

The shareholders also appointed one new member to its board of directors and decided to retain Nigeria which has been its chairman since the last meeting in Abuja in 2018 in that position for one more year.

In another decision, the meeting approved the bank’s 2018 annual report which includes the 2018 financial statements.

In his report, President of Afreximbank, Prof. Benedict Oramah, said that the bank’s total revenues rose by 24 per cent in 2018 to reach $806 million while the net income increased to $276 million, representing a 26 per cent increase on the level in 2017.

The bank’s total assets, including contingent liabilities went up by 15 per cent from $13 billion in 2017 to $15 billion in 2018, said President Oramah, adding that profit performance reflected strong growth in interest and fee income from diversified sources by geography and financial products.

He informed the shareholders that during its extra-ordinary session in Nouakchott in July 2018, the African Union heads of state summit had approved the accreditation of the bank to the AU, allowing the AU to adopt most of the bank’s flagship initiatives as continental initiatives.

That action, he added, would help to accelerate adoption of such initiatives at the national level, thereby improving the pace of implementation at lower cost.

Prof. Oramah explained that the accreditation was a privilege which was previously enjoyed only by the African Development Bank and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa.

The end of the annual general meeting marked the conclusion of the bank’s 2019 annual meetings which started on June 20 with the seminar and meeting of the advisory group on trade finance and export development in Africa, declared open by Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov.

On June 21, Chairman of the government of the Russian Federation, Dimitri Medvedev, had addressed the opening session of the meeting.

The meeting was held with the theme: “Harnessing emerging partnerships in an era of rising protectionism” and deliberated on such topics as how South-South trade can be a path to Africa’s integration into the global economy; multilateralism in the current global economic order of protectionism and the role of investing in Africa’s infrastructure in accelerating intra-African trade and economic development.

Highlights of the meeting included the launch of the African trade report 2019, the launch of the Afreximbank export trading company strategy and a half-day programme of activities dedicated to Russia-Africa investment cooperation. A number of trade agreements were also signed at the event.

This year’s meeting marked the second time Afreximbank annual meetings would take place outside Africa. The 2012 annual meetings were held in Beijing, China.