The president of Tanzania, Samia Suluhu Hassan, during yesterday's conference at the World Economic Forum urged African leaders to embrace cooperation with each other.
The president decided to use the opportunity to campaign for the intercontinental partnership within Africa that is often touted, yet slow to be implemented.
She used the platform to speak to investors, development partners and African leaders about the subject of collaboration and fixing the investment gap in Africa.
She made this impassioned plea at an AfCFTA (African Continental Free Trade Area) conference, as part of the ongoing 2023 WEF annual gathering, which had stakeholders for the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) in attendance.
The WEF for 2023 is a 5-day event which began on Monday, and is being held in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland.
“The President emphasized on the need to foster cooperation among stakeholders [investors, development partners and African leaders] and come up with solutions to investment challenges facing Africa in order to raise productivity in the continent,” a statement from the State House’s Directorate of Presidential Communications reads in part.
“When our people approach regional or international markets, they encounter too many permits, licensing and other such requirements. If the whole of Africa works to remove all these non-tariff barriers then business will grow all-around,” President Hassan once stated.
This push by President Samia Hassan is no surprise given that she has built an administration under a solid principle of collaborative efforts. Her regime last year saw her partner with countries such as South Korea, China, Kenya, America, amongst others.
So it goes without saying that she is the ideal thought leader on the subject of collaboration seeing as she has made it part of her agenda to personally sought after these partnerships for the betterment of the Tanzanian economy.
Tanzania is also at the forefront for the unified East African currency, which is being sped up at the moment. Recently, she signed an agreement with Kenya to eliminate about 23-trade barriers between both nations. Read the story here.
During the meeting, President Hassan, alongside other African leaders, launched a report titled ‘AfCFTA: A New Era for Global Business and Investment in Africa, which detailed how public-private partnerships can support the implementation of the AfCFTA.
The report touched on four key sectors that have a combined worth of $130 billion and represent high-potential opportunities for companies looking to invest in Africa’s automotive, agriculture and agro processing; pharmaceuticals, and transport and logistics.