The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) moved a step closer to realising the establishment of an Investment Guarantee corporation for West Africa with the inaugural meeting of the Project Implementation Committee held in May. Late last year, the ECOWAS council of ministers passed a motion to shelve plans to create a new entity and instead, they agreed to work with the African Trade Insurance Agency (ATI) to create an ATI-ECOWAS institution in West Africa.
Under the terms of the Road Map, which the Committee ratified, up to seven West African countries could potentially join ATI, increasing the company’s share capital by as much as $100 million. The initiative would also establish a regional office in one of the new member states. As a next step, ECOWAS representatives will visit the ATI Headquarters in Nairobi, and sign a Memorandum of Understanding to further cement the agreement. This is expected to take place in July this year.
In his opening speech to the Committee, the Commissioner for Industry and Private Sector Promotion, ECOWAS Commission, H.E. Mr Kalilou Traore encouraged the committee to work diligently to establish the mechanism in as short a time frame as possible. The initiative is in line with the ECOWAS revised treaty which places greater emphasis on developing and implementing programs to promote investment in the region.
At a time when regional insecurities may be fueling nervousness within the investment community, the Commissioner noted that “the investment guarantee mechanism would provide safety and security to investors and facilitate access to finance for development projects in the region.”
George Otieno, ATI’s Chief Executive Officer and Cyprien Sakubu, Chief Investor Relations Manager represented ATI at the meeting along with representatives from ECOWAS member states – Côte d’Ivoire and Nigeria – the ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development (EBID), the West African Insurance Companies Association (WAICA) and the Federation of West African Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FEWACCI).
“This is a natural next step in our expansion across Africa. We are confident that we will be able to provide the same type of security to investors in West Africa as we’ve managed to do in other regions over the past decade,” commented Mr Otieno.
To date, ATI has facilitated $13 billion worth of trade and investments into Central, Eastern and Southern Africa. The company has shown stellar growth in the past five years, which continued in 2013. ATI officially announced its annual results at its Annual General Meeting (AGM) that took place on 28th May. The results indicated that the company posted a 144% increase in profit in 2013 and insured trade and investments (gross exposure) of $872 million – representing a 23% increase over the previous year.
