{President Paul Kagame and his Kenyan counterpart Uhuru Kenyatta today October 16, 2014 graced the opening of the EAC Business Summit (EABS) taking place in Kigali.}
While opening discussions President Kagame said that there is need for every EAC citizen to benefit and make sure that whatever they do earns them enough to change their lives since there is a business friendly environment, stability, security, that allows people to go out there and play their part.
{{Inclusive community}}
According to President Uhuru the region is not well positioned to meet the needed prosperity because it has depended on imports and the community needs to create an environment which promotes young people to come on board empowered to work for the future
“Governments cannot succeed alone unless the private sector comes on board. We need to create opportunity and resources and the private sector needs to also work hard in nurturing these opportunities in the informal sector” he said.
Uhuru asked that how can we integrate small and big business and how do we nurture business that supplement the things we import
“We want to partner with the private sector and believe that they need to nurture, integrate these initiatives into the main stream and incorporate the tax regimes that will enable us to achieve this inclusiveness” he added.
While President Kagame stated that EAC needs to grow its economies because the community has all it needs.
We have everything we need. Just need to put all the blocks together and put resources together and work together. The more we do work together the more we integrate and benefit as a block”
Kagame said that the three connected components of government, business sector and citizens have been building from the bottom and encouraged the connection and actions of governments with the needs of our people to thrive but in between there are business leaders who need to know what they have to do, in order to help the ordinary citizen to change their lives
“We have to identify, be specific and inclusive in a way that each one plays their part. If we do it in one country and learn from one another, you can imagine how many of the 140 million people in the community can benefit.
Kagame said that it is possible and this has always been a moment for Africa but maybe Africans, as said by some people, have been sleeping longer than they should.
{{Open borders}}
On the issue of opening borders, President Uhuru said that there was need to first agree that we are all East Africans and need to open the borders for free movement. “We need to stop the inward looking mentality and allow EAC people to move freely, need to demystify the mentality of protecting our people.”
President Kagame agreed with Uhuru on free movement and said that it is a matter of what people need to do and hiring anyone from EAC shouldn’t be a problem because the need for manpower from neighboring countries is inevitable.
“We cannot be inward looking and wait for the right people, yet our people have been trained to fill in these positions. This is primitive and we can be blocking our opportunities with the inward looking yet this should be”
{{Ebola challenge}}
This was one of the health issues that have posed a threat in the region and discussants will look into how the region is prepared to tackle this outbreak which has posed a big global health threat today.
Uhuru said that it’s a concern for all Africans and this has affected the Arline business in Kenya and elsewhere Uhuru stated that Kenya is prepared to intervene to stop the disease, and currently looking into possibilities of sending manpower to assist in the affected countries
President Kagame said that it is a concern that indicates interconnectivity and calls for consented efforts to work together to stop the disease.
He noted that such an issue calls for working together and going beyond Rwanda and Kenya and not to be left to those affected even when they are at the front line.
“Start from home and expand to participate elsewhere. As we have always wanted to work together in business, even Ebola calls for us to work together and security is insecurity. You cannot think of trade development and propriety without looking at challenges that bring these things down.” Kagame said.
The two-day summit, titled “Positioning East Africa for Inclusive Prosperity in 2020 and beyond,” is bringing together more than 100 top Chief Executive Officers (CEOs), financiers and government representatives to address wide – ranging development issues affecting the region.
{{News Of Rwanda}}
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