Lenders urged to tap huge growth potential of China-Africa corridor

Growth potential in the China-Africa corridor, which means helping Chinese companies to expand their business in Africa, is immense and will become a major revenue earner for lenders, according to banking executives familiar with the matter.

Absa Group Ltd, one of the largest financial services group in Africa with a presence in 12 countries, saw its 2018 revenue from the China-Africa corridor grow 40 percent year-on-year.

"Our history has largely been rooted in the UK-Africa, Europe-Africa corridors, which refer to UK or European corporate clients investing or doing business in Africa. That is where a significant portion of our revenue comes from. We do believe, however, that the China-Africa corridor that we have mapped out in our future budgets can amount to be of the same size as our historical corridors," said Cheryl Buss, managing principal of corporate banking at Absa Group.