By RFIPalled on 03-25-2019Modified on 25-03-2019 at 00:50
Rwandan President Paul Kagame is due to open the Africa CEO Forum on Monday (March 25th) in Kigali. This is the seventh edition of this meeting of business leaders of the continent, organized by the magazine Jeune Afrique and the World Bank. This economic forum is to bring together around 1,500 participants for two days. They must discuss, among other things, the establishment of a free trade zone on the continent.
If the Africa CEO Forum is held this year in Kigali, it is because it is precisely in the Rwandan capital, exactly one year ago, that the agreement to create the Free Trade Zone was signed. continental exchange (ZLEC) . Forty-nine African countries, one goal: to increase intra-African trade from 15% to 25% of total trade of the continent within ten years.
But a year later, an insufficient number of countries ratified the agreement to implement it. The Kigali Forum therefore aims to accelerate this process and to think about ways to make it happen: how to lighten administrative procedures, accelerate the construction of infrastructure, protect the interests and industries of each country? Around 40 panels and other workshops will be dedicated to these issues.
The expected 1,500 participants will be mainly business leaders from Africa and around the world, but also heads of state and government. Togolese Faure Gnassingbe and Ethiopia's Sahle-Work Zewde are announced, as well as Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi, who is expected to present during the Forum the outlines of his economic recovery program for the DRC.
This evening at Urugwiro Village, President Kagame welcomes President Tshisekedi who is in Kigali to attend the Africa CEO Forum # ACF2019 pic.twitter.com/g3gxFFdE2G
Presidency | Rwanda (@UrugwiroVillage) March 24, 2019► The website of the Africa CEO Forum 2019
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