By: Creamer media

This involved both beneficiation and all the associated infrastructure, such as energy and transport. For Ecobank it was important to support this entire value chain. He stressed that the group was working with project sponsors to outline the entire value chain, from road construction to small and medium-sized enterprises providing food services. 

"They need to do beneficiation properly, on our continent, to develop our economies, sustainably," he affirmed. 

He cited the example of the Simandou project in Guinea. The Guinean government had developed an entire framework around it, which he described as "exciting". 

As for African mining projects in general, "[f]inancing for the mine itself remains global," he reported. Ecobank could not compete with the global major financial institutions that funded these projects. "We have been financing some of the junior miners." 

"The funding we do tends to be long term. It's important that, working with miners, we embrace different forms of risk management and hedging." Minerals prices could go down as well as up, he noted. 

Regarding critical minerals, it "is our wish, as a financier, that a lot of the value is retained on our continent," he stated. Owing to its minerals and other resources, Africa found itself in the middle of the current global political transformations.

"The shifts we are seeing have come to stay," he opined. "There's a new world order."

He expressed the hope that African countries could harmonise their regulatory frameworks. Currently, even neighbouring countries could have very different minerals and mining codes. And he also hoped to see the development of the African Continental Free Trade Area.