Zimbabwean firms get $400m bank boost to expand in Africa

Bloomberg

The African Export-Import Bank has set aside $400 million to help Zimbabwean companies that want to expand their operations on the continent, a senior official said.

The lender has already assisted Econet Wireless, the country’s biggest telelcommunications operator, with expansion plans, Afreximbank Vice President Denys Denya said Monday at a Southern African Development Community meeting being held in the capital, Harare.

The Cairo-based lender has been one of Zimbabwe’s biggest creditors, mostly through mineral-backed concessional loans, even as the country faced political and economic turmoil over the past two decades.

Afreximbank has also helped Dangote Group — owned by Africa’s richest person, Aliko Dangote — expand its cement-manufacturing business into Ghana and Tanzania, Denya said.