Trade
and investment in Africa are twin conference themes
 |
| ICC's conference aims
to bring trade and investment to developing countries in Africa |
Accra,
12 June 2001 - As developing countries strive for improved access to
world markets and increased flows of foreign direct investment, ICC is staging
a conference in the Ghanaian capital in October on finding the right strategies
for success.
This second African regional
conference of ICC will precede by only two weeks a ministerial conference of
the World Trade Organization in Qatar that developing countries hope will bring
significant reductions of barriers to their exports, particularly agricultural
products, textiles and clothing.
The Accra conference from
25-26 October will give African governments and business leaders an international
platform from which to make their case for a better deal on trade that will
promote their integration in the multilateral trading system, thereby stimulating
economic growth and alleviating poverty.
They are receiving considerable
support from world business through ICC. At a top level meeting with key ambassadors
to the WTO in Geneva at the end of May, ICC President Richard D. McCormick warned
against the consequences of a negative outcome in Qatar. Mr McCormick said:
"The future of this world depends on the trading system becoming more robust.
If we don't succeed, we risk leaving whole continents behind."
Many developing country
governments are still struggling to comply with WTO obligations negotiated in
the Uruguay round of trade negotiations in 1993. At the same time, they are
competing fiercely to create hospitable conditions for foreign investors in
terms of good governance, stability, social conditions and infrastructure development.
In Accra, speakers from
government, business and international institutions will debate how African
governments can best work with business to improve regulatory frameworks and
enhance their countries' international competitiveness as destinations for foreign
investment.
As the world business organization,
ICC is heavily engaged in providing private sector know-how to some of the world's
poorest countries that see inward flows of direct investment as the most effective
way to make sure that they are not left out of the globalization process.
At the Third United Nations
Conference on the Least Developed Countries in Brussels last month, ICC and
the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) announced that they would
set up a special business-government council to facilitate dialogue on investment
issues. Members will be senior executives of multinational corporations and
the political leaders of LDCs. Tanzania has offered to host the first meeting
later this year in the regional context of South-East Africa.