#News: #Canada-#Africa 2014 Business Summit opens in #Toronto The first ever Canada-Africa Business Summit opened on Monday (September 15) in Toronto, Ontario.The meeting focused on ways to explore Africa’s investment and business opportunities in areas including education, financial and insurance services, information and communications technologies, infrastructure, mining, and transportation. It also offers government officials, business communities, investors and other stakeholders from Africa and Canada an opportunity to exchange views on ways to fill the finance gap, explore key areas of investment, elevate the existing business and investment ties of Africa and Canada into a new and higher level, improve the efficiency of resource use through management of risk as well as find areas for a mutually beneficial cooperative partnership in legal, financial, operational, technical, institutional and human developments. Opening the Summit, Nola Kianza, Founder and Director of the Canadian Council on Africa, stressed that Africa was no longer a place where trouble, aid and disease preoccupied the minds of people. He said this first Business Summit highlighted the need for comprehensive partnership between Africa and Canada to secure a better tomorrow.Canadian Senator, Don Meredith, expressed his hope that the Summit would showcase the untapped investment opportunities created in Africa for Canadian business firms. He said the engagement of Canadian investors would inject new impetus for poverty alleviation efforts and create enabling conditions for a more comprehensive and closer cooperation between African countries and Canada. He further underscored that the Canadian economic diplomacy would be a major driving force in deepening and cementing the business and investment ties of Africa and Canada and improves the future prospects and aspirations of young populations. The Senator noted the Summit had identified Ethiopia as one of four African Countries of Focus, adding that Ethiopia had become an embodiment of business and investment opportunities endowed with a trainable and young population.He said the Government of Canada was committed to encourage and support Canadian firms to invest and benefit in Africa. Ethiopia’s Speaker of the House of Federation, Kassa Tekle-Berhan, said the Summit was a testimony to the collective desire and determination to broaden and strengthen Canada- Africa relations for the betterment of the two peoples. He emphasized that sound and well-crafted policies and strategies coupled with the determination of the people and the commitment of the Government had made Ethiopia a preferred destination for international FDI inflows in light manufacturing and agriculture. He said this Summit would help both Canada and Ethiopia advance their converging interests.After the opening session, panel discussions, question and answer sessions and consultations considered Ethiopia as a Country of Focus. “Doing Business in Ethiopia,”and networking events, as well as a documentary “Ethiopia: the Promising Future” featured in the programme. The Summit was organized by the Canadian Council on Africa (CCAfrica), in association with the Government of Canada and the World Bank Group, bringing together nearly 1,000 business people and representatives of African and Canadian governments. It offers in-depth discussions, panels, plenary sessions and workshops on issues centered on business, investment and trade ties between Canada and Africa.mfa.gov.et/news/more.php?newsid=3469
Posted on: Tue, 16 Sep 2014 13:27:26 +0000
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