By NLM writer
The inaugural Intra-African Trade Fair (IATF) will take place from the 11th to 17th December 2018 in Cairo, Egypt. The 7 day trade show will provide a platform for sharing trade, investment and marketing information and pooling buyers and sellers, investors and countries to meet, discuss and conclude business deals.
This was reached at on 13th September 2018 at the Intercontinental Hotel in Nairobi during a business engagement that brought together IATF, the Export Promotion Council of Kenya (EPC) and the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank). Whose highlight was a discussion panel that featured Mr Kiprono Kittony, Chairman Kenya National Chamber of Commerce, Mr Jaswinder Bedi, chairman Export Promotion Council Kenya, Mr Amr Kamel, Exec Vice President Business Development and Corporate Banking, Afreximbank and Mr Sebastian Mikosz, Group MD & CEO Kenya Airways.
An analysis and exploration of various challenges and opportunities that countries on the continent can take advantage of through harnessing technology for manufacturing was done. Kenya sought to see how the country can position itself through the IATF platform to be a key player in the single market that AfCFTA was ushering in. Also, sought to know whether there was existence of political will power for sustained advocacy for the trade pact within the country.
At the event, analysis by Afreximbank showed that intra-African trade was low at around 15% compared to Europe at 59%,Asia 51% and North America 37% due to lack of access to trade and market information. It is with this in hindsight that Afreximbank saw the need to convene the upcoming IATF to provide this information and also connect both buyers and sellers across the continent.
The IATF 2018 will seek to bring players from the Manufacturing, Logistics, Engineering, Construction, Tourism, Entertainment, ICT, Heavy Industries, Finance, Agriculture and Agro-processing together and enable them showcase their offerings to potential distributers. In attendance will be experts on various aspects of trade and import/export finance who will also share their expertise. The main agenda is enable this networking opportunity to help lead to exponential business growth.
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