New Telegraph

Why Macron  convened African Finance Summit in France -Presidency

…says another underway soon

The Presidency has explained that the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, convened the recently concluded African Finance Summit in order to raise funds to finance its economies after the ravaging global coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19).

It also disclosed that the French leader had concluded plans to convene another meeting to consolidate the gains recorded at the just concluded summit before the end of this year.
Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Malam Garba Shehu, in a piece yesterday disclosed that the idea of the summit, which held last week in France, began with a discussion between the French President and his Kenyan counterpart, Uhuru Kenyatta.
He noted that the COVID-19 had led to unprecedented economic and health challenges globally with great impact on Africa.
Consequently, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) postulated that the African continent would need $285 billion between 2021 and 2025 to achieve the growth momentum lost to the pandemic.
“Where do they start from?” he asked.
He explained that the need to raise the funds prompted Macron to organise the summit where about 20 African leaders, a dozen others from Europe and Asia as well as an impressive gathering of all the big players in the global financial system participated.
Others at the summit were the AfDB, the World Bank, the IMF, the G7 and G20 groups of countries, the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the Organisation for European Cooperation and Development (OECD) and very many operators in the Financial Sector as well as investment and manufacturing.
Shehu said the summit was successful with a global resolution to make African states attractive for investments.
Other successes recorded, according to him, were that it made cases for debt cancellation; decision to support private sector financially to form partnerships between the players in Europe and their counterparts on the African continent as well as the agreement for the formation of an Alliance for Entrepreneurship in Africa.
President Muhammadu Buhari, who attended the summit while on four-day state visit to France, held six meetings, including that which he traditionally holds with the Nigerian communities wherever he went.
He met Total, the Dassault Systems, Danaflex and Airbus, makers of airplanes and a prospective-partner in the new national airline starting in 2022.

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