By Lesedi Sibiya-Diplomatic Insider 

South Africa officially joins the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) which serves as Africa’s leading financial multilateral Institution. This signifies economic strides for South Africa, as the continent’s leading economy claiming their economic sovereignty. 

The agreement was approved by parliament in 2025 which formed part of a strategic partnership between Africa’s leading multilateral bank and Africa’s leading economy. 

South Africa now becomes the 54th state to join the bank’s Establishment Agreement in an effort to unlock various trade opportunities on a global landscape and reform the current fractured trading system which has kept African economies marginalized.

 Alongside the agreement between the two parties, Afreximbank will invest US$8bn into the country in order to enhance the economy of South Africa in the form of a “Country Programme”.

 The programme is designed to expand the bank’s developmental impact, strengthen industrial development as well as boosting the intra-Africa Trade and investment flows. 

This partnership has the potential for South Africa to leverage the trade infrastructures built by Afreximbank to enhance Pan-African reach and to solidify export relationships across the country.

 “I am therefore pleased that together with the South African Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (DTIC), under the leadership of Hon.Minister Parks Tau, we have put together what we consider an important package of US$8 billion for South Africa. The country programme is aligned with South Africa’s national development plan for 2030 and national industrial and trade priorities, and targets key strategic areas” said the President and Chairman of Afreximbank, Dr George Elombi. 

“For more than 30 years, Afreximbank has demonstrated its ability, its resilience, its innovative capability but it has more than that demonstrated that it has impact. This partnership will strengthen in more ways than one South Africa’s ability to support South African exporters, industrial projects and regional value chains while advancing our continent’s progress” said Cyril Ramaphosa in his address of the Afreximbank Accession.

 South Africa and Afreximbank have agreed to jointly pursue trade and economic development programmes which prove vital for the South Africa-Africa Trade and Investment Promotion Programme (SATIPP).