🇰🇷🌍 South Korea seeks larger investment role in Africa through KOAFEC and AI partnerships

South Korea signalled a push to expand its economic footprint in Africa at the latest Korea-Africa Economic Cooperation Ministerial Conference in Seoul in September, which brought together around 800 participants from 45 African countries. Marking 20 years since KOAFEC was established in 2006, the meeting focused on investment, technology and digital infrastructure, while the African Development Bank and the Export-Import Bank of Korea signed a new five-year cooperation agreement to identify and co-finance projects in energy, transport, digital infrastructure and critical minerals through loans, guarantees and equity investment.

Since its creation, Korea has contributed $132.82m to the KOAFEC Trust Fund, including around $50m for technical assistance and project preparation. According to the AfDB, those funds have helped prepare more than 40 investment operations and programmes worth over $6bn and mobilised at least another $4bn, while Korea and the AfDB also agreed to establish a Korea-Africa AI Hub as Africa accounts for less than 2% of global data-centre capacity.

#SouthKorea

🔸 Source

@africaintel