Dr Paul Adalikwu, Secretary General, Maritime Organisation of West and Central Africa (MOWCA) has commenced talks with Afreximbank to open ship financing and procurement of other maritime asset opportunities for African investors and maritime stakeholders.
After a virtual bilateral meeting between MOWCA and Afreximbank, both organisations agreed on the need to expand maritime business opportunities and strengthen the planned Africa-wide cabotage regime to boost investments and generate jobs.
Adalikwu, who told Dr Gainmore Zanamwe, the bank’s Acting Director, Trade Facilitator & Intra African Trade about MOWCA’s efforts to achieve easy access to credit for maritime business, noted that all state-owned shipping lines established in West and Central Africa between 1975 and 1990 have ceased to exist.
The SG said the demise of state owned shipping lines left the business to existing small scale sea carriers in Nigeria and elsewhere on the continent.
According to Dr Adalikwu, seaborne trade is dominated by the giant shipping lines from Europe and Asia and the only profit Africa makes is the registration fees of their vessels in some member-states and port fees when they call to discharge cargoes leading to capital flight. For the objectives of AfCTA to be realised, there must be African owned vessels plying the continent.
He further indicated that shipping needs the modernisation of African ports, intermodal connectivity with other modes of transport, such as rail, road, pipeline and inland waterways and the development of dry ports to solve the problem of likely congestion
The SG informed the meeting of the task of transforming MOWCA to the African Maritime Organisation (AMO) and it’s ongoing partnering with African Development Bank (AfDB), Intergovernmental Standing Committee on Shipping (ISCOS) and the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) and hopes to meet other regional bodies soon
Speaking for Afreximbank, Dr. Gainmore said that there are lots of business opportunities in the shipping sector and that Africa should not be a spectator.
He requested MOWCA to work towards the establishment of a viable maritime industry through the development of public – private partnerships (PPP).
Gainmore said that Afreximbank aligned with MOWCA on the thought processes for African indigenous vessel ownership, especially or those lifting cargo from Africa which can be used as launching pad into global trade.
He said considering the tonnage of goods lifted from Africa; it was not good that Africa is not fully participating in vessel ownership and shipping.
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