The Arab-Africa Trade Bridges (AATB) Program, one of the Islamic Development Bank Group’s initiatives, has welcomed Nigeria as AATB’s new member, formalized through an agreement on the sidelines of the 5th Meeting of the AATB Board of Governors hosted by the Nigerian federal government.
The AATB membership agreement was signed by AATB CEO Eng. Adeeb Al-Aama and Nigeria’s Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy Wale Edun.
The agreement provides a strategic and operational framework to support Nigeria’s efforts in trade competitiveness, export diversification, boosting priority value chains, and capacity-building initiatives aligned with national development priorities.
Cooperation will focus on trade promotion, agricultural business modernization, SME development, business missions, trade facilitation, logistics efficiency, and readiness for digital trade.
Edun projected that Arab-African trade will grow by more than $37 billion over the next three years, noting that with the launch of closer trade cooperation between African and Arab nations, broad prospects for growth and development are emerging through a shared vision, a strong commitment to value-adding partnerships, the opening of new horizons, and the driving of economic expansion.
The AATB Program is a multi-donor, multi-country and multi-organization program, aiming to promote and increase trade and investment flows between African and Arab member countries; provide and support trade finance and export credit insurance; and enhance existing capacity building tools relating to trade.
The program supports common activities of the private sector from both regions in order to create opportunities for businessmen from both sides to meet and be familiar with exchangeable goods and services as well as to identify the investment opportunities available from both regions in order to be promoted at the Arab-African level.
