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Nigeria’s Zenith Bank has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) to jointly develop the SMARTAfCFTA Portal to promote intra-African trade. Zenith Bank is supporting the portal with one million US dollars.
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The SMARTAfCFTA portal will provide information including trade indicators, market trends, custom tariffs, trade agreements, rules of origin, market access requirements of relevant jurisdictions, export potentials, export diversification indicators and contact details of business partners in target markets and other trade-related information about Africa.
The MoU was signed by the Group CEO of Zenith Bank, Dr. Ebenezer Onyeagwu and the Secretary-General of the AfCFTA, Wamkele Mene during the ongoing 2023 Zenith Bank International Trade Seminar in Lagos.
“This collaboration aims to unlock the vast opportunities presented by AfCFTA not only for Nigeria’s economic prosperity but also for advancing trade across African countries,” said Onyeagwu adding that the portal will help to unlock the vast opportunities for trade on the African continent.
Commending Zenith Bank, Mene said: “What many of you may not be aware of and the MD may be too modest to say is that Zenith Bank was the first bank to come to me to say we want to partner with you. We went to see the chairman and the Chairman said that Zenith Bank wants to make a contribution to digitize trade in Africa. I’ve never been offered a million dollars before. It was the first time he said here is a million dollars.
“The chairman said the $1 was to demonstrate the commitment as a bank to digitization in Africa. So, the portal wasn’t my idea; it wasn’t our idea at the AfCFTA Secretariat. It was Zenith Bank that stepped up and said this has to be done.”
