Angola’s Foreign Minister Téte António will address a high-level Economic Diplomacy Dialogue on Friday in El Alamein, Egypt, on the sidelines of the AUDA-NEPAD Summit and the eighth Bi-Annual Coordination Summit of the African Union and Regional Economic Communities (RECs).
António forms part of the Angolan delegation to the weekend summits, which is led by President João Lourenço, whose arrival in the Mediterranean city of El Alamein was expected on Friday.
The dialogue is organised under the theme ‘Transforming Relationships into Trade and Investment’, forming part of a plenary session titled ‘Trade: From Diplomacy to Execution — Unlocking Trade and Integration Across Africa’.
The session will examine how African governments can deploy economic diplomacy to open new markets, attract investment, strengthen strategic partnerships and advance their national and continental economic interests.
Among the issues to be explored are the role of private companies in moving goods, building value chains and investing across borders; the policy architecture required to make African integration viable in practice; and the specific contribution of economic diplomacy to market access and investment attraction.
The organisers of the ministerial dialogue framed its rationale around the fact that trade and investment are increasingly at the core of international relations.
Confirmed speakers include Egypt’s Foreign Minister, International Cooperation and Egyptians Abroad Minister Badr Abdelatty, and Nardos Bekele-Thomas, Executive Director of the African Union Development Agency – New Partnership for Africa’s Development (AUDA-NEPAD).
Burundi’s Foreign Affairs, Regional Integration and Development Cooperation Minister Édouard Bizimana and Wamkele Mene, Secretary-General of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), are also expected to address the gathering.
A second panel will focus on ‘Making Trade Work — The Business Perspective: What Does It Really Take to Trade Successfully Across Africa?’, bringing together private-sector leaders and economic operators.
That session will explore current opportunities and weak links in value chains affecting the movement of goods, the development of regional value chains and the ability of African companies to compete at scale.
Speakers on the business panel will include Francisca Belobe, African Union Commissioner for Economic Development, Trade, Tourism, Industry and Minerals (ETTIM); Aboubaker Hadi, Chairman of the Djibouti Ports and Free Zones Authority (DPFZA); George Kamal, Director-General and Acting CEO of the Kenya Airways Group; and Mohamed AbdelSamad, Director-General of Nissan Africa.
All sessions are taking place within the Alamein Africa-GO63 Forum, which runs in parallel to the AUDA-NEPAD Summit and the eighth AU-RECs Bi-Annual Coordination Summit.
The forum is conceived as a permanent African business platform designed for biennial meetings in Egypt. Its inaugural edition has drawn more than 20 heads of state, executives from leading international and regional financial institutions, and key actors driving transformative change across Africa’s most critical sectors.
Egypt’s government, Afreximbank and AUDA-NEPAD jointly established the forum to bring together Africa’s most influential policymakers in an unprecedented alliance between public and private sector leaders, connecting political authority with business capacity. Approximately 2,000 participants are expected to attend in El Alamein.
Source: ANGOP / Original article: https://www.angop.ao/noticias/politica/tete-antonio-fala-sobre-diplomacia-economica/
