For two days,
the 800 delegates, among which over 200 international investors, shared their
expertise and experience
The “Emerging Equatorial
Guinea” Symposium gathered an international assembly of over 800 participants
tripling the initial objective, which included business players and prescribers
from all over the world. They got an inside look at one of Africa’s most
dynamic economies (1) in particular into 5 strategic sectors:
Agriculture/Animal Ranching; Fisheries; Petrochemicals &Mining; Tourism and
Financial Services.
Among the participants …
4 former Presidents
•
Joaquim Chissano, President of Mozambique (1986-2005)
•
Festus Gontebanye Mogae, President of the Republic of Botswana (1998-2008)
•
Jorge Quiroga, former President, Bolivia
•
Olusegun Obasanjo, former President, Nigeria (1999-2007)
Other key attendees…
•
Otavio Azevedo, CEO, Andrade Gutierrez, Brazil,
•
Ozwald Boateng, Designer and Co-Founder, Made in Africa Foundation, UK,
•
Selim Bora, President of Summa, Turkey
•
Benjamin Bronfman, co-founder of Global Thermostat (USA)
•
Pascal Drouhaud, VP Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America, Alstom, France
•
Sala I Martin, Professor of international economics at Columbia
University, USA
•
Mehmet Nazif Günal, Chairman, Board of Directors, MNG Holding, Turkey.
•
Fathallah Oulalou, Mayor of Rabat, former Minister of Economy and Finance,
Morocco,
•
Rodrigo de Rato, former Managing Director, International Monetary Fund
•
Moussa Seck, Chair of the Pan-African AgriBusiness and Agro Industries Consortium.
•
John Shields, Mission chief, Equatorial Guinea, Horizon 2020 Programme
Major global corporations’
representatives, successful entrepreneurs, emerging and frontier market
investors, industry experts, representatives of international institutions,
namely World Bank and IMF, head of States exchanged directly with 100
Equatoguinean officials, including the Head of State, H.E President Obiang
Nguema Mbasogo along with 8 of his key Ministers.
“We are very pleased to
showcase how Equatorial Guinea is at a turning point to building an Emerging
Equatorial Guinea, via economic diversification and its industrialization plan,
PEGI 2020. Our overall ambition is to ensure long-term sustainability at a
level capable of generating enough jobs for our current and future generations
through concrete and business friendly initiatives,” concluded Marcelino Owono
Edu, Equatorial Guinea’s Minister of Finance and Budgets.
Over the 2 days of the
meeting, the participants addressed many issues with very concrete discussions
on how to develop a business welcoming environment including governance,
transparency, rule of law, acknowledging the government and the President’s
visible commitment to receive and incorporate their input and move forward with
a very ambitious plan.
As a result of the
discussions, investments contracts were signed for a total amount of 500
Million Euros and agreements for above 1 Billion Euros investments in the
fishery, agricultural, energy, mines and tourisms sectors.
In addition, several
initiatives will be implemented following the Symposium:
- The creation of a “one-stop shop” where potential investors will get all the necessary input to start a business in the country, from the information about investment law to the construction permit
- A goal to facilitate business creation and reduce time to open a business up to two days
- The launch of a Co-Investment Fund (CIF) of 500 Billion CFA francs (eq. of US$ 1 Billion), which represents almost 1/4 of the country’s yearly capital expenditure to fuel the state’s overall strategy to diversify the economy beyond oil and gas, on which its recent growth has been relying upon (2), for a more balanced economic system.
All of this would not have
been possible without a sound macroeconomic policy framework. This subject was
also addressed ahead of the Symposium, in a Policy Dialogue meeting on January
31st, held with the Equatoguinean government, experts from the World Bank and
the International Monetary Fund.
UNDER THE HIGH AUTHORITY OF H.E. PRESIDENT OBIANG
NGUEMA MBASOGO OF THE REPUBLIC OF EQUATORIAL GUINEA
(1) Over the last decade,
Equatorial Guinea has gone from being one of the poorest countries in Africa to
having the highest GDP per capita income across the entire continent.
(2)
Hydrocarbons, Mining and Quarrying represent over 75% of the total country GDP
in 2012 -
Source AfDB (African
Development Bank 2012 report)
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