APS : Sunday, 04 December 2016
ALGIERS- The African Investment and Business Forum is a “step forward” in Algeria’s effort to “bring together the African economic operators engaged in the continent development,” Minister of State, Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Ramtane Lamamra, stressed on Saturday in Algiers.
Speaking to the press in the margins of the Forum opening, Lamamra said that this meeting constitutes a “qualitative step” taken by Algeria to allow the Africans to discuss, but within a non conventional framework.”
The Forum coincides with Algeria beginning to implement a new model of economic growth and comes at a time when Africa “started the application of its leaders’ strategic decisions to stimulate economic integration through the creation of Free Trade Area and the building of several infrastructure projects, adopted as part of Nepad initiative, he said.
He recalled that President Abdelaziz Bouteflika is “one of the architects of Nepad,” reiterating that “Algeria is fully committed to achieving the goals and strategy set out by Nepad.”
Algeria, which now considers that Africa has “a strategic depth, has invested since its independence in this continent by providing training for at least 100,000 African officials in the civil and military fields,” he said.
Moreover, Lamamra said the Forum will debate several issues, notably the various obstacles to investment development in Africa and draft recommendations which will be submitted to the Algerian government and to the African investment promotion bodies.
The minister stressed that Algiers meeting represents “an opportunity for the economic operators of those countries to outline the needs of their countries, pointing out that “the Forum of Algiers is different the Fora: Turkey-Africa, China-Africa and Japan-Africa, because it has a comprehensive aspect. It is not a forum regrouping Algeria with the rest of the continent but a forum that encompasses the entire continent. “
