Healy Hunt has a long history in Global Trade Finance and in 2020 we will be stepping up our activity in this sector. Last week, our Chairman Paul Hunt and Managing Director Mark Johns attended the GTR Africa event in Victoria along with around 450 guests and attendees from Banking, Insurance, Finance, FinTech, Government Bodies and a host of supporting industries. It was a professional and authoritative event with a large number of senior figures demonstrating deep expertise and sharing eye-opening insight.
Global Trade has undergone huge changes in the last ten years. Thinking back to how an event like this would have looked when Healy Hunt started up in 1999, it was immediately notable how much younger, diverse and more dynamic the group was. There are new challenges to face: FinTech and Digitisation are revolutionising many areas of activity – including access to global trade for SMEs, there are moves to meet environmental challenges and new regions are coming into focus.
African Trade Facts:
- The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), launched in 2018 with the aim of bringing together 54 African countries with a combined population of over 1 billion people and a combined GDP of over US$3tn.
- African exports are dominated by raw materials including precious metals and oil which means that trade with the outside world is currently worth more than intra-African trade.
- Absa is a Pan-African bank that recently divested from Barclays, rebranded itself and is looking to go global.
- Africa’s top three economies by GDP are Nigeria, Egypt and South Africa
- Casablanca in Morocco is Africa’s top-rated financial centre according to the GFCI 26 report.
Africa is one of those regions that is achieving new levels of cohesiveness and maturity in global markets. The event featured a particularly well-informed and insightful debate about China’s investment in Africa and whether this was having a net positive impact, helping to lead Africa towards a new era of prosperity or back into debt with increasing trade imbalances.
Global Trade Review – GTR
GTR is the world’s leading trade and trade finance media company, offering information, news, events and services for companies and individuals involved in global trade.
Healy Hunt’s relationship with GTR is long and well established and means that we enjoy privileged access to GTR events, networks and expertise. Strong Healy Hunt verticals like Banking, Finance, Specialist Lending, Risk and FinTech are inextricably linked to Global Trade which leaves us well-placed to increase our activity in this sector. Look out for new announcements in 2020.
