ITFA – final Speaker for the Conference in Barcelona – Dr. Benedict Okey Oramah

The annual conference in Barcelona is just five weeks away.

If you have not registered for the ITFA annual conference which will be held between the 10th and 12th September 2014, please https://www.eiseverywhere.com/ehome/84379

All preparations are on track, both for the conference and for launching new initiatives which we will tell you all about at the conference. As our last speaker, with pleasure we introduce Dr. Benedict Okey Oramah, currently the Chairman of the Africa Chapter for the International Factors Group (IFG), one of the two leading factoring organizations in the world and Executive Vice President at Afreximbank. In his current role at Afreximbank, Dr. Oramah oversees the activities of the Bank’s Research, Strategic Planning & Cooperation Departments, as well as Business Development, Syndications and Investment Banking operations of the Bank.

Dr. Benedict’s presentation says it all: “FROM ASIAN TIGERS TO AFRICAN SIMBAS: will the cubs roar?”

Like some south East Asian economies in the 1970s and the 1980s (the ‘Asian Tigers’), Africa today seems set to finally become integrated to the rest of the global economy. Considered a ‘Basket case ’ in the 1980s and 1990s, Africa has in the past 15 to 20 years made steady progress towards economic resurgence such that today, it is being regarded variously as the ‘New Frontier ’ and ‘Emerging Bread Basket’ of the world. The continent’s renaissance is evident in many ways, such as its consistently rapid rate of economic expansion, the steady enlargement of the size of its middle class, the accelerating pace of expansion of its international trade, solid growth in FDI inflows, spread of political pluralism across the continent and so much more.

The economic transformation under way has not been a chance event; it has also not been free of consequences. The winners and losers in the transformation process will be defined by the extent to which parties understand the forces at work, especially the forces that determine the current dynamics in trade and investment flows in Africa as well as their implications for economic, trade and investment opportunities in the future.

The presentation will clarify these view points from a practitioner that saw the ugly and the bad, and is now a witness to the good.

Dr. Oramah holds a Ph.D. Degree in Agricultural Economics obtained in 1991 from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria. He obtained B.Sc. degree in Agricultural Economics from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria in 1983.
He has worked as Assistant Manager, Research, for Nigerian Export Import Bank from 1992 to 1994 before joining Afreximbank as Chief Analyst in 1994, rising to the position of Senior Director, Planning and Business Development department in 2007. He was appointed to the position of Executive Vice President of the Bank in October 2008.

As chairman of the Africa Chapter of the International Factors Group (“IFG”), he has seen the emergence of factoring companies in several African countries as well as strong mobilization of membership for IFG. He has been a Regular Speaker at UNCTAD’s Annual African Oil & Gas Conference beginning from 1995. He has also been a resource person at several trade finance conferences in London and elsewhere. Dr. Oramah has written over 30 articles (on a range of African economic and trade related matters) a number of which has been published in leading international journals.

On a more personal note, Dr. Oramah is married with three daughters.