At the 8th International Conference “Financing Investment & Trade in Africa (FITA 2025), Tunisian Minister of Trade and Export Development Samir Abid stressed the necessity of making regional integration and sustainable development cornerstones of African cooperation.
“Africa faces multiple challenges – climatic, economic, technological and scientific,” Abid noted, reaffirming Tunisia’s commitment to African values and active participation in continental initiatives. He emphasized the need for structured cooperation to create a prosperous, integrated African space built on solidarity.
The minister highlighted how this year’s conference themes, industrial transition, industrialization, energy transition and digitalization, align with Tunisia’s areas of expertise.
“Tunisia stands ready to share this expertise with African partners through win-win partnerships,” he declared.
Building a more productive, sovereign Africa
For his part, Anis Jaziri, President of the Tunisia-Africa Business Council (TABC), considered that the main challenge facing the African continent was to contribute to building a more solidly integrated Africa, with greater sovereignty over its natural resources and development choices.
He added that the continent needed greater integration, complementarity and productivity.
On this occasion, Jaziri emphasized that African countries should determine their future prospects, especially as they have a great responsibility in the face of global changes.
The 8th edition of the FITA2025 international conference is organized around the theme “Driving Africa’s Transformation”, taking into account the fact that the African continent is overflowing with potential and resources.
Africa has a population of 1.5 billion, rising to 2.5 billion by 2050, more than 60% of whom are under the age of 25. GDP is expected to grow from $3,000 billion to $10,000 billion by 2050.
“To realize its full potential, Africa will have to embark on a profound transformation and a real momentum of change,” he said.
Jaziri also spoke of the availability of sources of finance, which he said remained essential to any vision of Africa’s transformation.
FITA 2025 has organized four main sessions on this topic, covering the role of multilateral financial institutions in financing transformation, the role of commercial banks in financing large projects and SMEs, the role of venture capital and investment funds in supporting innovation, and the public-private partnership model for implementing structuring projects.
Jaziri stressed that this edition is of particular importance, as it coincides with the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the TABC (in May 2015).
“More than 100 partnership agreements have also been signed with chambers of commerce, employers’ organizations, business councils, investment agencies and think tanks,” he recalled.
Africa must invest its energies more effectively
Laurent Kazavi, an investor from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), believes that Africa has great potential in the field of new technologies to become a major global economic pole, alongside other international economic and trade blocs.
In a statement to TAP news agency, he pointed out that Africa is not lacking in capacity, but rather needs to better invest these energies and harness them for the benefit of its peoples, given the many initiatives led by the continent’s young people.
It should be noted that the FITA, which continued Wednesday, saw the organization of workshops and dialogues led by 160 speakers in 28 scheduled sessions.
An extraordinary ministerial meeting was also scheduled, with the participation of 4 tourism ministers from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mauritania, Libya and Madagascar, as well as the Deputy Tourism Minister of Ghana, to discuss issues related to the African tourism sector in order to boost the economy.
