LAGOS, 1 Sept. - (ANA) - Gabon is the latest country to become a member of the Africa Finance Corporation (AFC), after signing the Corporation's Instrument of Accession and Acceptance of membership in Libreville this week. Gabon is the 10th country to join the AFC. Other member states include: Cape Verde; Chad; Ghana; Guinea-Bissau; Guinea; Liberia; Nigeria; Sierra-Leone and The Gambia.

Gabon has an abundance of natural resources, with long-established oil, timber and manganese industries, and one of the world's largest deposits of iron ore. However limited infrastructure has been constraining the country's recent economic development. AFC aims to help address Gabon's most immediate infrastructure needs, in the transportation, natural resources and power sectors, among others, to assist the country in meeting its full growth potential and in diversifying its GDP and sources of income.

As with all other member states, Gabon's membership enables AFC to receive preferred creditor status within the country, the benefits of which would reduce AFC's investment risk, enabling the Corporation to provide more competitive financing solutions.

Overall, the Corporation has invested over US$2.5 billion in projects across 22 African countries and provides funding and project development expertise in a wide range of sectors including power, telecommunications, transport and logistics, natural resources and heavy industries.

Mr. Régis Immongault, Minister of Economy, Republic of Gabon said "I am delighted to be able to formalise Gabon's membership of the Africa Finance Corporation, an organisation that is successfully driving growth and development of infrastructure across the continent. The strong track record of the Corporation demonstrates its ability to work with both governments and private sector institutions to deliver innovative financing solutions for projects spanning a large variety of sectors."

Mr. Andrew Alli, Chief Executive Officer of AFC, welcomed Gabon to the corporation's membership body. "We at AFC are committed to proactively financing and developing infrastructure where it is most needed. We are excited by the government of Gabon's commitment to development and to supporting infrastructure investments as a means of achieving this objective. Gabon's significant natural resources, abundance of land and growing agricultural industry offers huge potential for sustainable growth and diversification, if the adequate supporting infrastructure is in place. We aim to make a significant contribution to this."

"By expanding our footprint and welcoming more countries as members of the corporation, AFC can address more of the continent's pressing infrastructure needs and build the foundations for robust economic development across Africa."

AFC, an international investment grade multilateral finance institution, was established in 2007 with an equity capital base of US$1 billion, to be the catalyst for private sector infrastructure investment across Africa. With a current balance sheet size of approximately US$2.9 billion, AFC is now the second highest investment grade rated multilateral financial institution in Africa with an A3/P2 (Stable outlook) rating from Moody's Investors Service. In May 2015, AFC successfully concluded a debut US$750 million Eurobond issue which was 7 times oversubscribed and attracted investors from Asia, Europe and the USA.

AFC's investment approach combines specialist industry expertise with a focus on financial and technical advisory, project structuring, project development and risk capital to address Africa's infrastructure development needs and drive sustainable economic growth.

AFC invests in high quality infrastructure assets that provide essential services in the core infrastructure sectors of power, natural resources, heavy industry, transport, and telecommunications.

AFC has become the benchmark institution for private sector power project development and investment in Africa. - (ANA)

AB/ANA/ 1 September 2015 - - -