The Advanced Structured Trade Finance Seminar and Workshops has opened on the Island of Sal in Cape Verde.
The event, which is 17th in the series, is put together by the African Export-Import Bank Limited, Afreximbank, and is expected to attract some 200 high-profile participants including chief executive officers, managing directors, and senior managers representing banks, other financial institutions, and entities involved in promoting trade.
The seminar and workshops are being held to equip African bankers with advanced structured finance tools and techniques for dealing with the challenges lenders face in the continent’s rapidly-changing business environments.
The event will give participants the capacity to structure bankable trade finance deals of varying levels of complexity, and will also give them an opportunity to network and exchange ideas.
About 1,600 African trade finance professionals including bankers, traders, academics, and regulators have taken part in Afreximbank-organised structured trade finance seminars like the one that took off yesterday.
Speaking at the seminar’s opening, Dr. Benedict Oramah, President of Afreximbank, said they were honoured to have Prime Minister Correia e Silva open the Structured Finance Seminar.
According to him, Mr. Correia e Silva – prior to starting his political career – worked in banking and so has an excellent understanding of the importance of educating and building capacity in the more complex areas of trade finance.
Dr. Benedict Oramah expressed appreciation for his hospitality in welcoming the Afreximbank team to the beautiful Sal Island.
In pursuance of Afreximbank’s goal of developing and strengthening trade finance capacity in Africa, the Bank in 1999 launched a programme of Annual Seminars on Structured Trade Finance. The seminar programme comprises two courses: the ‘Fundamentals of Structured Trade Finance’ and ‘Advanced Structured Trade Finance seminars’.
The seminar contents have been designed to ensure that participants acquire the capacity to structure bankable trade finance deals with varying levels of complexity. The intention is to ensure that African banks and bankers are well-equipped to deal with risks in financing trade under a difficult political-economic environment and changing trade counterparties.
This year’s edition will focus on Advanced Structured Trade Finance. The two-day seminar will be followed by a one-day workshop on forfaiting and The New Guidelines for Appointing Afreximbank Trade Finance Intermediaries and The Role of Local Administrative Agents. The fourth and final day will be dedicated to a workshop on Factoring.
The overall objective of the bank’s Annual Seminar/Workshop Series is to provide participants with the technical skills and knowledge necessary for operating effectively in the challenging global and African trade and trade-related project finance environments, with a view to enabling them structure viable trade and trade-related project finance deals.
The specific objectives of the Advanced Course will be to complement the basic course run by the bank in order to properly equip participants in structuring complex deals; create an opportunity for a proper evaluation and understanding of the new financing challenges that the changes in the global and African environments portend in the near- to medium-term; and also to equip participants with knowledge of the financing tools and instruments that are currently being used, or being proposed for use, in financing African trade under the changing environment.
Other specific objectives will be to understand the programmes and facilities Afreximbank is, or will be, introducing in the near-term to deal with the new challenges; and to create an opportunity for networking among African bankers.
