Zimbabwe to benefit from SA business summit

ZIMBABWE is set to derive some intellectual benefits from a summit dubbed, “The Agenda for Africa Industrialisation and Trade”, to be held in South Africa (SA) in October.
The event will draw various government officials and private sector stakeholders from across the African continent.
According to the event organiser, Panichi Gundo, the summit will be the first of its kind in Africa, as it seeks to address the low economic growth trajectories in the region, high unemployment rates, as well as uneven wealth and income distribution, among other issues.

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Industry and Commerce minister Sekai Nzenza

“We have invited the minister of Industry and Commerce… Sekai Nzenza to speak at the event. We also invited the permanent secretary and other officials,” Gundo told The Financial Gazette this week.

Other speakers expected to make presentations at the prestigious event include SA’s Trade, Industry and Competition minister Ebrahim Patel, South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive, Alan Mukoki, World Bank senior economist Douglas Zhihua Zeng, United Nations Development Programme resident representative in SA, Ayodele Odusola and Ethiopia’s senior minister and special adviser to the Prime Minister Arkebe Oqubay.

The summit scheduled for the October 24-26, 2022 at the Radisson Blu Hotel, Johannesburg, will be held under the theme: “Unlocking the African Industrial and Trade Capacity for Faster Economic Growth”.

“The… summit is unique in the sense that it will be the first event to be hosted post Covid-19 and it is anticipated that the event will be celebratory in tone, larger in scale and have an intrinsic appeal to capture media, stakeholder attention and participation, reflecting an ever-establishing and challenging micro and macro economies locally, regionally and globally. The industrial debate audience has also grown over the years and particularly in 2022, due to the coronavirus pandemic and the shrinking share of the African contribution to the world economy and international trade,” Gundo said.

He said while the Covid-19 pandemic continued to have a devastating effect on lives and economies, Africa was increasingly re-looking its industrial and trade policy design as well as architecture and historical experiences to improve its economic status.

Gundo however, said the continent was still lagging behind in the uptake of “structural transformation, adoption and use of modern industrial and trade policies design, technological and scientific know-how”.
newsdesk@fingaz.co.zw

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