« We Have To Change The Structure Of Our Trade »

Mr. President and Chairman of the Board of Directors, you have just been elected head of African Export-Import Bank. What are your priorities?
The key mandate of Afreximbank is to change the structure of our trade so that we can face development head on. That we started doing very poorly in the past few years, that we cannot relinquish on. We have to continue that effort. That is going to be the priority: deal with the export processing goods, deal with the seaport terminals, deal with the power stations, deal with the infrastructure we need, the capital and the human resources we need to process the minerals. When that is done, our continent will be transformed. That is where the focus will be.

You are taking over as head of the Bank in an economic context marked by persistence of certain global crises such as the war in Ukraine that are also affecting African countries and Cameroon in particular. In such an environment, how do you intend to contribute to improving this situation?
First, we need the support of the member States. Second, we have to enhance the job we started doing about three years ago, which is to move to processing. It is no longer interesting to export cotton from Sodecoton for example. At the moment we are working with someone in an industrial zone to get that done around the Dibamba in Douala to begin to process that into garments. That is the only thing that makes sense to us right away. When you process, you create more jobs, you build confidence, you enhance skills, increase the tax base and then you stop importing unemployment into our countries. 

Fitch Ratings has just assigned a “negative” outlook, justified by the risk posed by the debt owed to Afreximbank by certain sovereign borrowers. This decision is likely to have a negative impact on the image of the institution you now oversee. How do you plan to manage this situation in order to restore Afreximbank's image among its clients and partners?
Ratings is largely just a discipline after all. Sometimes it goes up, sometimes it comes down. What we should note in a Fitch...