The COMESA Investment Forum (CIF 2024) was held Thursday for the first time in Tunisia under the theme of “Unleashing Potential: Cross-Border Trade and Investments” with the aim to spotlight the diverse business opportunities across COMESA member states, encourage cross-border trade and investments and foster an environment where business leaders from the region can explore and seize these opportunities.
Opening the forum, COMESA Regional Investment Agency (RIA) CEO Heba Salama said that “times are changing as some African countries continue to surprise the world with their economic progress and yet investment in Africa is still dominated by those based elsewhere in the world. There is so much untapped potential that we would like Africans to benefit from, hence the need to act by working together, opening networks and sharing ideas and this is the aim of this forum.”
Slama further indicated that Africans are the most genetically diverse people on earth, “but this forum will help us disucss our similarities”.
Africa is also on the rise with a bigger workforce, more private sector jobs, greater mobility and better policy. As such, she called on the investors and businesses to push the borders and take the risks and grasp the opportunities.
“Tunisia’s business ties with West Africa is very strong but COMESA will open a new horizon as since its accession to COMESA trade transactions with Kenya have grown substantially.
More opportunities await Tunisian private sector because the COMESA has 21 economies, 12 million square kilometres of which more than 90% is potentially arable land, almost 40% of Africa’s land mass, 640 million customers with significant purchasing power, access to global markets through regional and international trade agreements, a combined GDP of $1 trillion, diverse nature ressources and young and dynamic workforce, she highlighted.
Taking the floor, COMESA Assistant Secretary General Amb. Dr Mohamed Kadah expressed gratitude to the Tunisian government for hosting the 1st COMESA Investment Forum in its new edition.
“COMESA continues to champion, encourage and facilitiate investment flows as this is the source of sustainable economic, industrial, infrastructural and technological development.” As such, COMESA undertakes to develop transformational strategies that prioritise investment promotion activities and implementation of measures for investment recovery, including enhancing the business environment and maximising the development impact of FDI to restore sustainable growth.
COMESA further strives to create a competitive business environment, increase international and local investment flows, and enhance participation in regional and global value chains as key measures to address the current challenges.
“These challenges include geopolitical tensions which have disrupted global supply chains, high commodity prices, financial crunch, etc,” he added
Kadah further indicated that the number of projects has decreased by 30% since 2019 while capital investment in Africa has risen by 2.5 times higher in 2022, compared to 2019. “The number of announced Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) projects in Africa rose from 517 in 2021 to 734 in 2022. FDI in COMESA regions stood at US$ 23 billion in 2022 signifiying a positive development from the effects of the COVID 19 pandemic.”
“This forum provides a platform for interraction between investment promotion agencies in the region and private sector stakeholders,” he added, expressing hope the engagement among these stakholders will result in investment opportunites.
For his part, Head of the Economic Section of the European Delegation in Tunisia Marco Stella said that “this forum is yet another milestone in our relations based on the joint African Union/European Union partenrship and strategies and solidarity.”
“The EU will continue to support access to other markets and implement programmes to enhance competitiveness, market access and capacity building to achieve targets and support value chains,” he added.
The forum was attended by over 350 ministers, decision-makers, businessmen, investors, representatives of the Tunisian private sector and officials of investment authorities and agencies from 21 COMESA member states, as well as a number of international, African and Tunisian organisations, including the European Union (EU) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
