Afreximbank to set up $5bn textile industrial facility in Nigeria
The outgoing President, African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank), Benedict Oramah has announced that the bank will commence construction of a $5 billion integrated textile industrial facility in Nigeria in July this year, as part of a bold continent-wide industrialisation strategy
The facility, to be developed under a partnership between Afreximbank, Arise IIP and Swiss textile equipment manufacturer Reiter, is expected to revive Nigeria’s moribund cotton industry, save the country up to $4.7 billion annually in textile imports, and create up to 250,000 jobs.
“This would be one of the very large textile facilities being developed under a $5 billion partnership… supported by the Swiss Government,” Oramah said in his speech at the bank’s just concluded 32nd Annual Meetings in Abuja.
This landmark project underscores Afreximbank’s deepening focus on industrialisation, which Oramah described as the “cornerstone of Africa’s economic transformation.”
The move also forms part of the bank’s broader ambition to anchor Africa’s trade resilience and self-reliance, following years of foreign dependence that, he argued, have yielded little progress.
Looking ahead, Oramah projected that Afreximbank’s total assets and guarantees—currently at $43.5 billion—could surpass $250 billion in the next decade. “I have no doubt that we would see that… because it is by our owning and controlling a bank of that size that Africa can hope to escape from the shame of poverty and underdevelopment,” he said.
The textile facility announcement was one of several landmark interventions Oramah revealed in what was his final annual address after a decade at the helm. He steps down this weekend as Afreximbank’s third president, having overseen a transformative period for the institution and the continent’s economic infrastructure.
