{"id":13934,"date":"2014-04-17T07:31:30","date_gmt":"2014-04-17T07:31:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/homegrown-investments-to-create-large-firms-in\/"},"modified":"2014-04-17T07:39:23","modified_gmt":"2014-04-17T07:39:23","slug":"homegrown-investments-to-create-large-firms-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/homegrown-investments-to-create-large-firms-in\/","title":{"rendered":"Homegrown Investments to Create Large Firms in Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"
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{{A panel of business policy makers, entrepreneurs and bankers on Friday met during the World Bank-IMF Spring Meetings to discuss ways to boost the creation of large African businesses using homegrown investments.}}<\/p>\n

Moderator of the panel, Hubert Danso, Chief Executive Officer and Vice Chairman of Africa Investor (Ai) Group, opened the discussion.<\/p>\n

Based on their policies and their experiences managing private companies and lending organizations, Danso asked panelists to share their ideas for how best to successfully create large firms.<\/p>\n

The panel, made up of policy facilitators and business growth and private sector practitioners, included Jean Philippe Prosper, IFC Vice President for Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean; Sidi Ould Tah, Minister of Economic Affairs and Development for Mauritania, Doroth\u00e9 Cossi Sossa, Secr\u00e9taire Permanent de l’OHADA; Admassu Tadesse, President & CEO of PTA Bank; and Villa Kulild, Director General of Norad.<\/p>\n

Jean Philippe Prosper got the ball rolling by citing the prevailing realities impacting Africa\u2019s needs and the available opportunities to address them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are currently few large African companies to increase employment opportunities and meet the continent\u2019s huge demand for jobs, which is an overwhelming social challenge that seems to be the responsibility of everyone and anyone,\u201d Prosper said.<\/p>\n

\u201cReducing trade barriers and cutting trade costs in Africa is attracting investors to the region,\u201d he added. \u201cIn the middle of these demands and opportunities, creating large firms in Africa is the way to go for the private sector in Africa.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sidi Ould Tah, Minister of Economic Affairs and Development for Mauritania, cited the enormous home-based skills that Mauritania has built over the years in managing railway transport, skills from which Africa can benefit.<\/p>\n

\u201cRailways are the cheapest and safest ways of transporting heavy cargo goods and large populations of traders and passengers across the continent,\u201d he said. \u201cRailways can contribute to Africa\u2019s integration while accruing profits for investors and stimulating the marketing of agricultural and artisanal produce.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Ould Tah, Mauritania has enormous skills in railway but its market of rail users is too small and not sufficient to optimize profit. \u201cThis is where transnational partnerships and investment on railways becomes important,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Admassu Tadesse, President and CEO of PTA Bank, alluded to the importance of the home-grown nature of African companies such as his company the Preferential Trade Area Bank, commonly known as PTA, a trade and development financial institution in Africa and the financial arm of COMESA, but open to non-COMESA States and other institutional shareholders.<\/p>\n

Tadesse said his \u201ccompany is currently a solution to addressing the market size challenge for the financial service sector\u201d, a challenge which Mauritania is currently facing for the rail sector. He further noted that \u201cwhen companies are home grown their decision turnaround time becomes very cost effective.\u201d<\/p>\n

Villa Kulild, Director General of the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad), stressed the importance of countries\u2019 macroeconomic stability and the international competitiveness capacity of large African firms as two important requirements for profitability and sustainability.<\/p>\n

Doroth\u00e9 Cossi Sossa, Secr\u00e9taire Permanent de l’OHADA, stressed the importance of compliance and due diligence that private and public investors in Africa should implement in order to benefit from the services of OHADA. OHADA is a system of business laws and implementing institutions adopted by 17 West and Central African nations.<\/p>\n

Overall, panelists agreed that the demand for jobs, growth and ending poverty in Africa are as great as the opportunities for addressing them through private investments that are large, profitable, responsible and can produce widespread benefits in terms of economies of scale for themselves and benefits of scale for their populations.<\/p>\n

wirestory<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{{A panel of business policy makers, entrepreneurs and bankers on Friday met during the World Bank-IMF Spring Meetings to discuss ways to boost the creation of large African businesses using homegrown investments.}} Moderator of the panel, Hubert Danso, Chief Executive Officer and Vice Chairman of Africa Investor (Ai) Group, opened the discussion. Based on their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2000051705,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[100],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-13934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-africa","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000051705,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton13934.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton13934.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton13934.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton13934.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton13934.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton13934.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13934\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000051705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13934"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=13934"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=13934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}