Business & Money | Monday 20 March, 2017 6:00 am |

The International Islamic Trade Finance Corporation (ITFC), member of the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) Group and Attijariwafa Bank Group (AWB) sign a cooperation framework to support trade development between Arab and African countries. The signing took place at the occasion of of the 5th International African Development Forum in Casablanca, Kingdom of Morocco, between Eng. Hani Salem Sonbol, CEO ITFC and Mr. Mohamed El Kettani, Chairman and CEO of AWB Group.

As part of this new cooperation framework, ITFC is set to provide Shariah Compliant Financing to the subsidiaries of Attijariwafa Bank; in addition ITFC, AWB, and AWB Subsidiaries are set to co-finance companies looking to import goods from Arab countries.

On this occasion, Eng. Hani Salem Sonbol commented, “This signing is part of the Arab Africa Trade Bridges (AATB) Program, where we aim to cooperate together and provide financial products that serve the needs of our member countries and as a first phase focus the initiatives in three Sub-Sahara Countries: Cameroon, Cote D’Ivoire and Senegal. We are working to implement new trade finance solutions with the purpose to gradually expand the implementation of the solutions developed to other Markets in the Africa sub region.”

Mr Mohamed El Kettani, Chairman and CEO of AWB group stated:

“ITFC and AWB are bound to foster a resilient and long-lasting relationship in Africa and the Arab World. We share the same vision as far as levers of economic growth are concerned. That goes relevantly through trade and investment flows. The agreement we signed today is a strong milestone in our joint cooperation targeting African and Arab trade flows”.

This signing comes after a number of previous collaborations between the two organizations. In February 2016, at the occasion of the 4th International Africa Development Forum, both ITFC and AWB signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) by which the two organizations agreed to set up a strategic partnership to cooperate in several areas related to their respective mandates particularly in trade finance operations.

Additionally, AWB recently participated in the Launching Forum of the Arab Africa Trade Bridges Program (AATB), held in Rabat in February 2017, where it was addressed, amongst others, the importance of the development of specific trade finance solutions to support exporters from Arab and African regions and therefore increase the trade flows between the regions.

It is worth mentioning that ITFC is a sponsor of the 5th International Africa Development Forum, where the theme of this year’s forum is: “New Inclusive Growth Models in Africa”.