Group beckons Malawi to continental summit
Malawi has been invited to participate at the high-level 2021 Africa Industries CEO Summit slated for August 2021 in Ethiopia.
The summit, organised by the Africa Industrialisation Group Inc. (AI-Group Inc), will be held from August 26 to 29.
In an interview from his base in Nigeria, AI-Group Inc. chief executive officer Carl Oshodi described the meeting as a viable sustainable space where emerging business and infrastructure champions from the continent will collaborate on sector partnership, seal deals and meet with investors from the globe.
He said the summit, called Africa Industries CEO and Rainmaker Industry Star Award in Africa, will be held under the theme Optimising Private Sector Partnership to Support Industrial and Socioeconomic Transformation: Africa, Investment and Infrastructure.
Oshodi, who boasts of decades of industry sector management himself, said the summit is set up to mobilise Africa’s elite stakeholders from the 55 African Union member States, including Malawi, committed to improving businesses on the continent.
He said: “The summit will welcome sector leaders from sector andnon-sector institutions including facility managers, investors, infrastructure developers, renewable energy practitioners, trade facilitators, professional miners and financial institutions from the continent willing to learn, work and play through paper presentations, panel sessions and network on industry clustering and many other investment opportunities spanning from pan-African to global network in sector partnership and community.”
Malawi has this year ratified the African Continental Free Trade Area which provides the opportunity for Africa to create the world’s largest free trade area as it has a potential to converge 1.3 billion people, within an estimated $2.5 trillion economic bloc.
Minister of Trade SostenGwengwe told Business News on Monday that Malawi has quality agriculture-based products that can favourably compete at regional and global markets but expressed worry that the private sector looks down on itself by feeling comfortable with the domestic market.
Malawi is among several other developing countries across the globe grappling with high cost of doing business, and whose investment flows as measured by Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) remains low due to a myriad of factors including lack of sustainable energy supply as manifested by incessant power outages.
Malawi is also ranked one of the poorest countries in the world with a per capita income of about $600 per person per year and with a nominal gross domestic product (GDP) of $10.9 billion (about K8 trillion).
