The African Export-Import Bank has signed a deal with Uganda, which will see the pan-continental investment lender open its East African branch office in Kampala.
The deal was signed by President Yoweri Museveni and Benedict Oramah, Afrexim’s president. The branch in Kampala will be the bank’s fifth after Cairo, Abuja, Abidjan and Harare.
The agreement also guarantees Afrexim and its senior officials diplomatic immunity in dealings in Uganda.
Prof Oramah said the establishment of an East Africa branch would deepen the bank’s involvement with the region’s institutions.
The Kampala branch will be open for business at the end of October and will serve 11 countries: Kenya, Uganda, Sudan, Eritrea, Djibouti, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi and Comoros.
Afrexim is in talks to get Uganda’s National Social Security Fund. The plan, according to Kudakwashe Matereke Afrexim East Africa chief operating officer, is to have NSSF join others in the region like Rwanda’s social security board to become one of the lender’s institutional investors.
