Tanzania President Jakaya Kikwete opened the 14^th Annual General Meeting of the African Trade Insurance Agency (ATI) in Dar es Salaam and in his address to the African Ministers in attendance, international participants and the local business community he noted that ATI had played a significant role in re-shaping the world’s risk perception of Africa.

Through its growing international reputation for partnering with global insurers to cover major African risks, ATI has helped the continent attract a record level of capital flows in 2013 estimated at 5.3% of the regional Gross Domestic Product.

“This progress further underscores the important objective of ATI in helping to improve the reputation of Africa as a viable place to trade and invest,” stated President Kikwete.

President Kikwete also indicated ATI’s support in helping countries to diversify their economies, which will help them address any underlying structural issues so they can more easily take advantage of the growing opportunities from investors and others looking to Africa to expand their business interests.

“Most of our economies are still powered by commodity trade with the down-side risk that lower commodity prices and demand could derail performance in these sectors and negatively affect growth,” he said.

“It is estimated that 50 percent of Sub-Sahara Africa rely on oil and mining for the bulk of their exports. A primary objective of ATI is to facilitate the diversification of economic activity in its member countries towards sectors that have a higher value added and are less sensitive to exogenous factors.”

During the meeting ATI members also approved the company’s annual accounts, which released some key figures. In 2013, the cumulative volume of business that ATI supported in its member countries rose to US$13 billion (TZS 21 trillion) while the company’s profits rose to a record US$1.5 million (TZS 2.4 billion), an increase of 144% over the profits made in 2012.

Saada Mkuya Salum, Minister of Finance chaired the meeting, where ATI’s members including Ministers of Finance and Trade along with Insurance experts deliberated on a number of technical issues that will help to steer the company’s growth in the coming year including consideration of applications for membership from prospective new member countries.

The company plans to redouble its efforts to increase membership, a key strategy to increase growth. At the meeting, George Otieno, ATI’s Chief Executive Officer announced an important initiative expected to help ATI achieve this objective of expansion into West Africa.

Mr. Otieno announced that “our discussion with the ECOWAS Secretariat and the Council of Ministers has yielded a very positive outcome. The Council of Ministers has made a decision that ECOWAS will work with ATI to recruit additional West African countries which will form an ATI hub in West Africa,” Mr. Otieno said.

Another important initiative that is tied to the increasing demand for ATI’s products in the energy sector and ATI’s growing international reputation in underwriting energy sector deals led to the company securing a €2 million grant (TZS 4.4 billion) from the European Investment Bank signed during the EU-Africa Summit in April. The grant will prepare ATI to take a leading role in a future initiative that will see a newly formed body – the African Energy Guarantee Fund – insure renewable energy projects across Africa. Tanzania is expected to be a prime target market once the fund is implemented.