Africa has become the hub of foreign investments because it has opened up its borders, improved its governance and set up a more conducive climate, according to former managing director of the International Monetary Fun d (IMF), Michel Camdessus.
“Today, the challenge is to take advantage of all the opportunities to ensure a stronger human growth in the continent,” Camdessus said in Rabat, Morocco, Tuesday.
He is co-chairing, with former Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa, the first African Emerging Markets Forum billed to end in Rabat Wednesday (today).
According to Camdessus, the African continent is at a turning point, particularly after three “extremely difficult” decades.
On his part, Mkapa said that in order to meet the challenges of globalisation, African countries must strengthen their regional integration to accelerate their economic development and improve African populations’ welfare, while developing their cooperation with the rest of the world.
Mkapa, who belongs to the Blair Commission for Africa, said the continent must m eet this challenge through “an institutionalised regional cooperation” likely to
positively impact on investments both at the regional level and on foreign direc t investments intended for Africa.
The first Forum of African emerging markets seeks to provide opportunity for dia logue between government officials and experts to provide answers to economic, financial and social problems facing African emerging countries.
The forum, initiated by “Emerging Markets Forum”, a non-profit organisation based in Washington DC, was billed to address three basic themes on Africa’s long term development: “Investment trade and funding”, “Infrastructures and environment” and “climate change”.
