The African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) Trade Finance Seminar was held in Windhoek from Tuesday, 5 until Thursday, 7 November 2024. As a sponsor for the event, Bank Windhoek joined African financial institutions and supporting entities under the theme 'Promoting African Trade in a World of Digital Solutions.'
On Thursday, 7 November 2024, Bank Windhoek's Head for Investment Banking, Gideon Vos, represented Bank Windhoek on a panel discussion titled “Sustaining Financing for Oil and Gas Projects in Africa: A Case for New Discoveries in Namibia."
The panel featured financial leaders who discussed their role in banking for sustainable oil and gas financing and further explored its benefits.
Vos said financing oil and gas projects in Namibia is a new playing field for local banks and that the primary focus for Bank Windhoek within the sector is to enable Namibian service providers to succeed with its support. “The oil and gas sector is significantly large; hence, empowering Namibian service providers, enterprises, and shareholders to become part of the ecosystem is vital. We must encourage local buying to empower and bring wealth to the local community," he said.
Additionally, Vos said Bank Windhoek positions itself as the only Namibian bank that promotes local entities and their development. “The Bank is instrumental in creating a platform for local entities due to the connections between the Bank and its people," he said.
He added that local and regional banks must partner to develop Namibia's oil and gas projects while adhering to the correct legislation governing how decisions are made to ensure the smooth development of the oil and gas sector.
Director of Compliance at Afreximbank, Idissa Diop, said that oil and gas projects must be submitted with all requirements necessary for financing to be approved. He urged project owners to understand that processes within banks are essential. “Financial institutions have coherent value chain processes that examine submitted projects. Compliance and Credit Departments will challenge projects to ensure they are well structured," he said.
Headquartered in Cairo, Egypt, the African Export-Import Bank, or Afreximbank, is a pan-African supranational multilateral financial institution created in 1993 under the auspices of the African Development Bank. It is mandated to finance, facilitate, and promote intra- and extra-African trade. For over 30 years, the Bank has been deploying innovative instruments to deliver financing solutions that support the transformation of the structure of Africa's trade, accelerating industrialisation and intra-regional trade and thereby boosting economic expansion in Africa.
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