African Trade & Investment Development Insurance (ATIDI), Africa's leading multilateral insurer of trade risk, is seeking around $500m in capital from partners to support countries that face higher costs as a result of conflict in the Middle East.
In an interview with the news agency Reuters, ATIDI CEO Mr Manuel Moses said that the Middle Eastern crisis had made the problem urgent.
“Demand is coming faster than we can absorb with our current balance sheet,” he said. The company’s current capital base is close to $1bn.
Mr Moses added, “Given what is happening now, we probably need to take that to about $1.5bn.”
He said higher prices for energy and other commodities caused by disruption to trade flows meant member countries were seeking to increase their trade finance limits by an average of 20% to help cover more expensive imports.
In addition, Mr Moses said he was keen to set up a separate financing facility of around $1bn to help it respond more quickly to similar situations in the future.
ATIDI is a multilateral institution established under treaty by several African states. Its objective is to support the financing of trade and investments and other productive activities on the African continent through the provision of insurance, coinsurance and reinsurance, guarantees, and other financial instruments and services. Currently, it counts 24 countries as members and several institutional shareholders that include multilateral banks, insurance companies, and corporations such as African Development Bank, Atradius, Export Credit Guarantee Corporation of India and Nippon Export and Investment Insurance.