The Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC) will on January 25, 2023, host the First Annual Assembly of African Investment Promotion Agencies in Accra.
The maiden summit will focus on: “The Role of IPAs in Facilitating Intra African Trade”.
A statement issued in Accra by the Centre said together, the Heads and Representatives of the invited African Investment Promotion Agencies along with colleagues from the World Association of Investment Promotion Agencies (WAIPA), economic and political leaders would explore the critical role Investment Promotion Agencies played in boosting intra-African trade.
There will be further discussions on the emerging opportunities AfCFTA continues to present and how various development actors can leverage them to facilitate trade on the continent and boost socio-economic development.
Key speakers at this year’s summit are Mr Yofi Grant, CEO of the GIPC & Sub Sahara’s Director on the Steering Committee of the World Association of Investment Promotion Agencies and Mr Ismail Ersahin, Executive Director for WAIPA.
Mr Grant said, “By 2050, Africa will be a quarter of the global population and what if by 2050, Africa was also the recipient of a quarter of global FDI flows?”
He said as the continent looked inward on how it could promote intra-African trade through AfCFTA, Africa needed to redefine how it looked outward towards its investor partners.
He said the redefinition was best created when they sat around the table and discussed where they were and where they wanted to go.
“This is why we are convening the first of many Annual Assembly of African Investment Promotion Agencies,” he said.
He said through that, they hoped to deepen and continue engagement for the formation of an Association of African Investment Promotion Agencies.
He said the annual summit would set the tone for collective engagements on how development actors could target, channel, and leverage foreign investment for mutually beneficial outcomes.
He called for cooperation on increasing intra-African investment in Africa, which was relatively low compared to other regions of the world.
There are currently about 48 African Investment Promotion Agencies, and the Annual Assembly of Investment Promotion Agencies will serve as the official gathering for African IPAs to engage in discussions, exchanges, and knowledge sharing on policies, interventions, current trends in FDI, best practices on investment promotion, the AfCFTA, among other topics.
