The African Development Bank Group (AfDB) has approved a €25 million trade finance facility for Cameroon’s Crédit Communautaire d’Afrique-Bank (CCA-Bank) to help expand lending and trade support to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the lender said on Tuesday.
The financing, approved by the AfDB Board on 1 December, will be deployed as a Transaction Guarantee, providing up to 100% risk cover to international confirming banks for trade finance instruments issued by CCA-Bank. The guarantee is expected to ease imports of equipment for the industrial, agro-industrial and telecommunications sectors.
“The facility will enable CCA-Bank to issue more letters of credit and similar instruments for the benefit of SMEs in Cameroon,” said Lamin Drammeh, head of the AfDB’s Trade Finance Division.
Léandre Bassolé, the Bank’s Director General for Central Africa, said the operation aligns with AfDB’s efforts to strengthen private-sector financing in the region, noting that it would enhance support for women- and youth-owned businesses, boost local production, and help create and sustain jobs.
CCA-Bank Managing Director Marguerite Fonkwen Atanga welcomed the Bank’s first direct financing support to the institution, calling the partnership a “major milestone” that will strengthen its capacity to serve entrepreneurs and start-ups.
Launched in 2021, the AfDB’s Transaction Guarantee covers instruments such as confirmed letters of credit, commercial loans and promissory notes, and is available to African banks that meet the institution’s due-diligence requirements.
