Your Excellency Mrs. Gourouza Magagi Salamatou, Minister of Trade and Youth Entrepreneurship of the Republic of Niger;
Your Excellency Hassan Mohammed Moalin, State Minister within the Ministry of Trade of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia;
Distinguished Senior Officers in Cost of industrIalization and financial diversification;
Strategic Companions;
Girls and Gents.
I nice every one among you.
I’m, regrettably, unable to be with you bodily in Niamey. This is because of exigencies of obligation associated to the Specialised Technical Committee on Finance, Financial Affairs, Financial Planning and Integration.
I’ll, nevertheless, be bodily be with the Ministers after they meet from 6-7 November.
I’m very completely happy that you might attend this Joint Assembly of the African Union Senior
Officers of Ministries in control of industrialization and financial diversification in preparation of the seventeenth Extraordinary Session of the Meeting of the African Union Heads of State and Authorities centered on industrialization and financial diversification that’s scheduled to be held on twenty fifth November, 2022, in Niamey, Niger.
Though I’m not bodily within the assembly, I’m very assured that our host, the Individuals and Authorities of the Republic of Niger have accorded every one among you, heat welcome and gracious hospitality. That is their landmark custom.
On this connection, I feel I communicate for everyone on this assembly once I request Her Excellency, Minister Gourouza Magagi Salamatou to convey our honest gratitude to His Excellency M. Mohammed BAZOM, President of the Republic Niger, the Authorities and the Individuals of the Republic of Niger for the distinctively heat welcome, hospitality and conducive atmosphere for the conduct of enterprise of the Senior Officers on this Joint Assembly.
Many strategic companions performed key and various roles for this assembly, the upcoming assembly of Ministers and the Extraordinary Session itself.
I would really like, on this respect, to thank the United Nations Industrial Improvement Group (UNIDO), the United Nations Financial Fee for Africa
(UNECA), the Workplace of Particular Adviser on Africa (UN-OSAA), the African Export
Import Financial institution (Afreximbank), the African Union Improvement Company (AUDANEPAD), the Arab Financial institution for Financial Improvement in Africa (BADEA), the African Commerce Insurance coverage Company (ATI), the African Improvement Financial institution (AfDB), the Islamic Worldwide Finance Company and the Afro-Champions Initiative for contributing in varied methods, to the profitable preparations for this assembly, the Ministerial phase and the Meeting itself,
As I flip to your agenda and programme, my preliminary statement is that you’ve got strategic points earlier than you. I name on you to interrogate all the problems and suggestions earlier than you. On this connection, I additionally name on you to make use of this chance to ask the correct questions and discover the correct solutions to the challenges and alternatives of reworking Africa from a producer and exporter of uncooked supplies to at least one with a thriving industrial and diversified financial system.
The outcomes of the processes of industrialization and financial diversification in Africa present that our efforts in leveraging these since from the time our international locations attained independence present that we now have not generated the outcomes we would like.
In a majority of our international locations, the share of producing within the gross home product, in addition to employment from the manufacturing sector are very low. The identical is with the share of producing within the export baskets of most of our international locations.
Consequently, our economies face, amongst others, low productiveness, low charges of financial progress, progressive decline in Africa’s share of worldwide commerce, continued heavy reliance on exterior borrowing and assist to finance our growth, periodic debt crises and continued poverty.
Towards this background, productive transformation, a difficulty that may come up in your deliberations, turns into a key job for all our international locations.
And this productive transformation is enterprise uncommon. LET ME STRESS: BUSINESS UNUSUAL. We now have, on this connection, to distinguish our new efforts with these of the previous by being extra modern.
The primary innovation we now have made is to determine the African Continental Free Commerce Space. It’s a enormous and dependable platform for the event of regional and continental worth chains.
For instance, the event of agricultural worth chains will rebalance Africa’s international commerce and thus scale back her enormous dependency on imports which quantity to roughly US$ 115 billion {dollars} per 12 months, and rising.
The event of our agribusiness {industry} in a regional and continental worth chain strategy may even contribute to feeding Africa’s inhabitants and make the continent turn out to be meals safe. Ethiopia has demonstrated this by, inside three seasons, assembly home demand for wheat and has now began exporting wheat to neighbouring international locations.
Equally, the event of regional and continental pharmaceutical worth chains can finish the present state of affairs of Africa’s well being marginalization, a difficulty I’ll come again to later in my assertion.
As a part of selling regional and continental worth chain growth, African international locations may even have to work collectively to align their industrial insurance policies in a coordinated method, and, within the course of, construct specialised manufacturing hubs in particular and complementary sectors, and, consequently, reap advantages of a dynamic industrialization course of throughout the continent.
The subsequent innovation is for all our international locations to develop the talents of our individuals for the manufacturing of intermediate and closing items of top quality to advertise the event of intra-African commerce, along with elevated exports of manufactured items to the remainder of the world. On this connection, partnership with the personal sector will likely be promoted as a result of it’s instrumental in addressing the massive expertise mismatch and likewise promote productiveness in manufacturing processes.
As a part of the method of investing in individuals, there may be have to equip them with the talents required for industrialization and financial diversification. Aligning expertise with the altering priorities of competitiveness for an inclusive and sustainable industrial growth requires an enhanced university-industry cooperation to strengthen innovation, expertise growth and administration capacities.
On the stage of the African Union Fee, we’re recommending to you, the Ministers and the Meeting to approve that we embark, beginning with a feasibility research, on the method of creating an African Manufacturing Institute with campuses in every of the 5 areas of Africa.
Proper now, Africa faces the pressing job of growth expertise in two key areas. The primary one as earlier talked about is within the manufacture of intermediate items so as to add worth to her huge agricultural and mineral sources. The second is within the space of the Fourth Industrial Revolution which is vital to Africa leap-frogging her sustainable growth course of.
Nonetheless on innovation, this, moreover, calls for selling industrial analysis and growth in addition to industrial design, that are all vital to enabling us to repeatedly improve our industrialization processes.
At present, Africa is manly counting on switch of expertise via international Direct Funding to industrialize. Although welcome to construct preliminary capacities, it’s in the long term, not sustainable. There are, and, will at all times be, mental property obstacles.
That is at present demonstrated by the idea notice and draft resolution earlier than you from the African Group of Ambassadors in Geneva.
The twelfth Ministerial Convention of the World Commerce Group held in Geneva this 12 months, amongst others, got here up with a choice on waiver of mental property rights to cowl the manufacturing of COVID-19 diagnostics and therapeutics to take away Africa’s and different creating international locations’ well being marginalization. Excellent work on the waiver is predicted to be concluded by seventeenth December this 12 months. The draft resolution requires an extension as a result of loads of work nonetheless must be finished.
In a number of different features of switch of expertise, together with worth addition in strategic and inexperienced minerals, Africa and different creating international locations may even encounter mental property obstacles, therefore the necessity to begin innovating.
As a part of the method of innovation, we’re additionally creating the Made in Africa customary. This may enhance high quality, security, competitiveness in addition to removing of technical obstacles to commerce within the African Continental Free Commerce Space.
As you undergo the paperwork earlier than you, I’m certain you’ll recall that our continental industrial coverage doc is the Motion Plan for the Accelerated Industrial Improvement of Africa (AIDA) and that it has been hailed by each teachers and coverage consultants as being sound. With this in thoughts and having sampled the duties earlier than us, the subsequent job is to reaffirm our ambition to industrialize Africa, inclusively and sustainably. This have to be adopted with efficient and well timed actions to remodel our ambition into outcomes that clearly present that Africa is progressively industrializing.
On this respect, we should put money into implementing our coverage paperwork.
A key part of that’s mobilization of investments anchored on reworking Africa from a knowledge deficit area to a knowledge wealthy area.
One of many steps we now have finished on this route is to spotlight the demand for industrial merchandise in Africa as a significant alternative for manufacturing on the Continent.
Our 2019 Africa’s Improvement Dynamics Report which we co-publish yearly with the Improvement Centre of the Group for Financial Cooperation and Improvement, captures this, by noting that Africa’s home demand, anchored on a younger and rising inhabitants, is a very powerful driver of the continent’s progress efficiency as a result of it accounted for 69% of annual progress between 2002 and 2018.
This demand is now shifting in the direction of extra processed items and is rising 1.5 occasions quicker than the worldwide common.
The publication goes on to point out that demand for a lot of different merchandise comparable to motor automobiles, manufactures of metals and industrial equipment can also be increasing quicker than the worldwide common. Current information from the Automotive Trade Export Council enhances the foregoing by exhibiting that Africa has the world’s lowest motorization fee, which 40 automobiles per 1,000, far under the world common which stands at 180 per 1,000.
Personal consumption in Africa can also be pushed by a fast-growing center class, presently estimated at 350 million, and, projected to achieve 600 million by 2030, eight years from now.
Nevertheless, these alternatives are largely ignored by the worldwide funding neighborhood as a result of Africa is seen as a high-return but in addition high-risk funding vacation spot. Because of this, it’s estimated that over US$ 10 trillion at present sits in adverse yield bonds in developed nation capital markets, ignoring Africa’s excessive returns due to the perceptions of excessive threat.
Since notion is just not actuality, this then leads us to the duty of imbedding manufacturing and funding information as further home windows within the Africa Commerce Observatory in addition to creating a method on inclusive progress and sustainable developed aimed toward positioning Africa develop at 7-10% on a sustained foundation. These will enormously contribute to eradicating the info deficit of Africa.
Let me now dwell on the problems associated to inexperienced industrialization. Decarbonization is vital to selling inexperienced industrialization. Consequently, demand for inexperienced vitality in Africa will rise, not only for industrial operations however to fulfill family demand as properly.
To place this in context, let me say that at present, 970 million individuals in Africa lack to entry to scrub vitality for cooking. As well as, 600 million individuals in Africa lack entry to electrical energy. Moreover, because of vitality shortages, some industrial operations in Africa face perennial low capability utilization.
I want to add extra to the problem of local weather change by saying that estimates by the African Improvement Financial institution present that though the African continent solely contributes to three% of worldwide emissions, Africa has been shedding 5 to fifteen% of her per capita Gross Home Product progress due to local weather change and its associated hostile impacts of warmth waves, floods and droughts.
As a part of the method of positioning Africa to maneuver in the direction of inexperienced manufacturing, we’re endeavor a survey on the observe of Environmental and Social Governance (ESG) among the many Africa Personal Sector. By way of it, we intention to evaluate the African Personal Sectors’ capacities to combine ESG and local weather change concerns of their enterprise methods and operations. This survey, which is supported GIZ will function the premise for a aspect occasion we’re organizing on the margins of the COP 27 on Decarbonizing African Trade in addition to the aspect conferences to be held from 20-24 November, 2022 within the run as much as the seventeenth Extraordinary of the Meeting on twenty fifth November.
Past this, additionally it is turning into an crucial for environmental sustainability to provide regionally, as an alternative of exporting commodities and importing completed merchandise. The carbon footprint of transportation in one of these world commerce will be considerably lowered with localized manufacturing. I urge you to make suggestions to Ministers on this necessary concern.
I would really like at this stage to activate the alternatives supplied by the Fourth Industrial Revolution and easily name on you to make sure that it’s absolutely factored within the paperwork going to Ministers and Heads of State and Authorities.
As I come to the top of my assertion, let me make 4 factors.
Firstly, there may be have to re-galvanize political management for accelerated inclusive and sustainable industrialization. On this regard, the Fee proposes the nomination of an African President as Champion of Industrialization and Productive Transformation. The Champion will present political management, consciousness and guarantee comply with up of inclusive and sustainable industrial growth commitments inside the continent to attain Africa’s transformation beneath Agenda 2063: The Africa We Need. He may even spearhead the continental institutional coordination mechanism for useful resource mobilization with the assist of the African Union Fee and different related establishments which facilitate implementation of programmes and initiatives of Agenda 2063.
Secondly, there may be have to develop a continental financing platform that assist industrialization and financial diversification. The Champion of the African Union Monetary Establishments, His Excellency the President of the Republic of Ghana is main us on this course of.
My third level is the necessity to make investments pro-actively in youth start-ups. On this connection, we will begin creating mannequin laws on youth start-up operations which Member States can use to develop nationwide start-up laws with the intention to keep away from main divergencies throughout the continent. If that is achieved, we might be higher positioned to in future remodel the mannequin legislation right into a protocol as we did with our preliminary work on funding which is now being remodeled as a protocol on funding as a part of the authorized devices of the African Continental Free Commerce Space.
My fourth and closing level is to recall that within the Sixties, South Korea was known as a bottomless pit. With ambition to industrialize, resolve, laborious and sensible work, South Korea has immediately a dynamic industrial base with flagship merchandise like televisions, cellphones and, amongst others, motor automobiles.
Within the Nineties, The Economist newspaper labelled Africa a hopeless continent. This label has now been retracted. The purpose is that it’s inside our energy to dynamically industrialize and diversify the African economies. Allow us to do it.
I’ll finish by wishing you fruitful deliberations and thanking you on your type consideration.