Prof. Benedict Oramah, the departing president of the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank), stated that during his ten years in office, the bank’s assets and balance sheet increased by about eight times, from $6 billion in 2015 to nearly $44 billion in 2025. “We kept a sharp focus on institutional strength and financial health and grew the balance sheet and guarantees almost eightfold, from $6 billion in September 2015 to almost $44 billion in September 2025,” Oramah said Friday during a goodbye conference in Cairo.He went on to say that the Bank paid out “an aggregate of almost $1.4 billion as dividends for the period from 2015 to 2024,” demonstrating strong financial returns for shareholders. According to Oramah, the expansion was founded on the purposeful idea that intra-African trade and investment should be the “arrowhead of Afreximbank’s strategy,” as Africa’s economic liberation must be driven from within. He noted that when heassumed office in 2015the continent facedserious problems, including a commodities crisis, setbacks in industrial transformation, and inadequate trade integration. He noted that many had challenged the bank’s broad objective but said it became evident that Afreximbank had to “fight on all fronts” to make headway. “We have learned from hundreds of years of history that external interests have typically been parasitic and predatory, unless they are pursued from a position of strength and purpose,” he said.
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