The president of the Mauritius Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MCCI), Mr Guillaume Hugnin, and the vice president of the Africa Business Council, as well as chairperson of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) Business Council, Mr Marday Venkatasamy, paid a courtesy call on the Prime Minister, Mr Pravind Kumar Jugnauth, at the New Treasury Building, in Port Louis, this afternoon.
The objective of the meeting was to appraise the Prime Minister on the latest development regarding trade with the African continent through the Africa Business Council.
The Africa Business Council is an independent private sector institution of the African Union, and the apex body on the promotion and lobby of the Pan-African Business interests, whose membership is open to national, regional and continental private sector organisations/associations. At its General Assembly in Cairo, Egypt, on 12 November 2021, Mr Marday Venkatasamy was elected as one of the vice presidents on the first Executive Board, and the election was preceded by the adoption of the constitution of the Africa Business Council.
In a statement following the courtesy call, Mr Venkatasamy said that he announced to the Prime Minister that an agreement was signed, this morning, between the MCCI and the Africa Business Council to house one of the three Regional Offices of the Council. The two other Offices of the Africa Business Council are in Kenya and Nigeria. This initiative, underlined Mr Venkatasamy, would increase the visibility of Mauritius in Africa. He also informed the Prime Minister that Mauritius would lead one of the eight technical groups established by the Council, namely on Logistics and Connectivity in Africa.
Moreover, the Prime Minister was briefed on the commemoration of the Africa Business Day, celebrated on 20 January, by the Council and business communities across the continent. The event, under the theme ‘From Cairo to Cape, from Lagos to Mombasa, and from Dakar to Dar es Salaam for Economic Empowerment of African Private Sector, Operationalisation and Popularisation of the Africa Continental Free Trade Area, Boosting our Intra Africa Trade and Promoting Made in Africa Products’, is marked by the Lighting of the Africa Trade Torch in Cairo, Egypt, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and in Abuja, Nigeria.
For his part, Mr Hugnin recalled that since independence, Mauritius had good ties with Africa whether through the Organisation Commune Africaine et Malgache (OCAM) and the Organisation of African Unity in the past, the Southern African Development Community, the COMESA, and the African Union. He affirmed that the MCCI continued to translate political agreements on trade and collaboration via private investments and private sector efforts.
The president of the MCCI underscored that Mauritius should tap the opportunities in Africa as it was a huge continent, and its Intra-African trade stood at around 7%. He added that the Regional Office of the Africa Business Council would contribute to closer links with the continent and enable to address issues such as air and sea connectivity with a view to export Mauritian products there and encourage more travel between African nations and the island.
Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Republic of Mauritius.
