The Africa Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Forum has officially kicked off in Kigali, Rwanda, on Thursday morning, bringing together business leaders, investors and heads of state, as well as government ministers, to forge a shared vision for Africa’s growth and global competitiveness.
Themed, “The Scale Imperative: Why Africa Must Embrace Shared Ownership,” the event is aimed at developing the private sector in Africa.
Speaking at the opening of the forum this morning, Rwandan President Paul Kagame said Africa needed to leverage its competitive advantage.
“If you look at the area of green energy, this continent is home to 60% of solar potential. Africa is home to that. If you look at the critical minerals that are talked about, all of them, the majority are on the continent for making batteries and so on,” says Kagame.
“Different powers are fighting over that, but Africa, which has a lot of that, is silent or losing most of it cheaply to those who have the power and know what they want to do,” he adds.
According to Kagame , Africa has the resources to not be struggling to overcome some of the challenges the continent is facing.
“Look at the human capital, in terms of human capital, Africa has an abundance of that. In fact, whether maybe by now already or in a few years to come, Africa will have the largest middle class in the world. How can we have these resources and then we are here wondering how to overcome some of the challenges that are brought by the geopolitics that we talk about or the crisis that we see happening in Africa?”
More than 2800 participants are attending the event, with over 90 countries represented at the Kigali Conference Centre, and more than 300 members of the media covering the event.
–SABC–
