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Press Release

III^rd  Forum Africa 2007: A great success !

Sheraton Center of Montreal, 27-28 September 2007

Montreal, October 1st 2007. - For this IIIrd edition of the FORUM AFRICA, organized by Afrique Expansion Magazine, the African Business RoundTable (ABR) and the Canadian Council for Africa, hundreds of participants, entrepreneurs, political personalities and directors of public and private organizations had come to the Sheraton Center where the table was once again set to discuss « investments and partnerships for a sustainable development in Africa ».

Beyond the workshops, the focal point of this biannual meeting was the « Discover a country Day ». This innovation, aimed at presenting the economic assets and opportunities of a country, chose Cameroon for its first edition. A choice which the editor of Afrique Expansion Magazine, Malam Gerba, justified in his statement to the participants: «This country deserves to be honored not only for its enormous economic potential but also and especially for the remarkable efforts done in the past years to come out of a difficult situation, for the important means used to combat corruption and for the true will to make the management of public affairs transparent ». A statement supported by the members of the Cameroonian delegation headed by the Vice Prime Minister Mr. Jean Nkuété.

Doing business in Africa

Bearing witness to the accelerated mutation on the continent during his intervention, the Cameroonian Vice Prime Minister reminded that “Africa is breaking off from the long period of economic stagnation it went through in the seventies and eighties”, and the cooperation between Africa and large industrialized countries such as Canada needs to be intensified in order for all parties to fully benefit from the spin-offs of investments in infrastructures, evaluated at 200 billion $ over the next ten years. These commitments require a certain amount of guarantees which were discussed all along the meetings.

The true key to business, project financing, was at the heart of the debates with notably David Creighton, President of Cordiant Capital, who once again confirmed the nowadays rapid profitability of investments in Africa. As a reminder, Cordiant manages, in collaboration with the British company Actis, the Canadian Investment Fund of Africa aimed at private investment operations in Africa.

Representatives from South Africa, Tunisia, Nigeria or Ivory Coast were also able to promote their respective countries business opportunities. In the case of Cameroon, the Minister of Tourism, Baba Hamadou, demonstrated that, far from the saturated usual African destinations, Cameroon presents important unexposed territories ranging from beaches to desert spaces passing by ecotourism, which is quite popular these days. Basically, the presentations proved that African economies are definitely more diverse and that growth is on the agenda in numerous countries.

Essential requirement to the commitment of operators, good governance and the fight against corruption were also on the menu. And in that respect, Africa presents a much better image. A situation confirmed by David Kaufmann, director at the World Bank Institute who demonstrated during his brilliant talk on “Governance and private-public partnerships” the important progress made by many governments.

Local initiatives

At the heart of an economy, also resides the viability of local development structures. That is why the presence of the Cameroonian Minister of SME’s, Social Economies and Handicrafts, Laurent Etoundi Ngoa, was particularly important. His argumentation rejoined what was being discussed during the workshop on On-going Training and Mentoring which heard three main speakers: Mrs. Lalla Haidara, Program Manager, Trade Facilitation Office Canada (TFOC), Nicole Beaudouin, CEO of the Women’s Business Network of Quebec and Nicole Mercier, Director, International Development Services, College Édouard-Montpetit. SME’s are at the heart of the battle for development and employment and the Canadian expertise can bring a lot in terms of competences.

Business Awards

Finally, Afrique Expansion Mag once again celebrated the companies which had exceptionally contributed to Africa's development through their activities. The distinctions for this III^rd edition were as follows :

-           IMPORT-EXPORT AWARD : AL MASSA INTERNATIONAL

-           AFRICA-CANADA PARTNERSHIP AWARD : REGENORD

-           WOMEN ENTREPRENEURSHIP DEVELOPMENT AWARD: ANYWAY SOLUTIONS

-           AFRIQUE EXPANSION AWARD FOR THE PROMOTION OF AFRICAN KNOW-HOW: DENIS LEONARD PIEDJOU

The next edition of the Forum Africa will be in 2009.

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