Arab Africa Trade Bridges Program

The Arab and Africa regions, at the mid of increasing global economic and social challenges, are experiencing significant level of economic growth. There remains an untapped potential to further develop regional trade and investment, which will produce continuous economic growth and employment for both regions.

The volume of inter-regional trade is still low, as such, the “Arab Africa Trade Bridges” (AATB) Program was developed in 2017 to address some of the challenges faced in promoting trade and investment between the two regions and developing inter-regional business partnerships.

Objectives of the AATB Program:

The AATB Program is a multi-donor, multi-country and multi-organizations program, aiming to promote and increase trade and investment flows between African and Arab member countries; provide and support trade finance and export credit insurance; and enhance existing capacity building tools relating to trade.

The AATB Program is geared towards increasing economic integration and support sustainable growth across Arab and African countries.

Specifically, trade and investment promotion efforts will focus on sectors where significant added value is created, especially in industries that rely on a more highly skilled workforce and those which can promote greater investment and knowledge diffusion. Based on the current economic landscape in the target countries, the primary sectors where this program’s impact will be felt the most will be in manufacturing, agriculture and health & pharmaceutical industry. Yet, the Program is dynamic enough to accommodate additional building blocks to achieve the objectives.