ITFC provides financing to African countries worth $25B

CAIRO – 9 September 2021: International Islamic Trade Finance Corporation (ITFC), has provided $60 billion in financing so far, including $25 billion in African countries, according to CEO of the ITFC, Hany Sonbol.

Sonbol added Thursday that the corporation is working primarily on stimulating and encouraging trade.

This came during his participation in the second workshop, in which Rania Al-Mashat, Minister of International Cooperation, participated in the activities of the second day of the Egypt International Cooperation Forum (Egypt-ICF), on activating regional cooperation mechanisms in light of the African Free Trade Agreement and the challenges of e-commerce for the private sector.

“The forum comes at the perfect time, and discusses very important topics, as the challenges facing the digitization process are considered important matters for the International Islamic Trade Finance Corporation,” he said.

Sonbol pointed out that the ITFC is interested in financing many projects related to this matter, especially in the field of agriculture, in order to introduce modern technologies and digital transformation in this important sector.

He added that the agricultural file is an essential part of the Foundation's work because of its extreme importance, as we are interested in improving infrastructure and logistics, and providing advisory services in order to promote trade in goods, explaining that the Foundation has many partnerships with international institutions, and is part of the World Electronic Trade Organization for all.

He stressed the importance of supporting the technological infrastructure in countries in order to enhance e-commerce operations, noting that the great cooperation between the ITFC and Egypt in the areas of digital transformation in light of the great efforts made by the Egyptian government to increase reliance on technology and support the infrastructure of communications and the Internet.

The forum witnessed important dialogue sessions that confirmed that the Egypt-ICT in its first edition succeeded in creating a dialogue platform between the relevant parties in the development file to discuss challenges and opportunities and contribute to the development of a road map for countries to implement the sustainable development goals, and many development initiatives and projects were launched.

On Wednesday, the activities of the Egypt ICF were launched, under the auspices of President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, with the participation of several ministries.

The forum is attended by high-level government representatives from Africa, Europe and Latin America, heads of international and regional financial institutions and representatives of the private sector and civil society.