COMESA organizes workshop for investment promotion agencies ahead of Africa 2018

SHARM EL SHEIKH, Egypt, Dec 5 (MENA) - The Regional Investment Agency (RIA) of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) organized a workshop on Wednesday for the investment promotion agencies in Africa in the run-up to the Africa 2018 Forum due to kick off in Sharm el Sheikh on Saturday.

The forum which will run for two days will be held under the auspices of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi and attended by 3,000 African and international figures.

In a speech at the workshop that was attended by CEOs and members of promotion agencies from 27 African and non-African countries, RIA's CEO Heba Salama said that the agency set a strategy this year that extends until 2020 depending on the best international practices in the field of encouraging and attracting foreign direct investment (FDI).

RIA is always searching for the best means to create opportunities to benefit from the plentiful available resources in the African continent, she said.

RIA was launched in 2006 in line with COMESA's ultimate objective to create a fully integrated, internationally competitive and unified regional economic community in which goods, services, capital and persons move freely, for the sustainable economic development of the region. The principal route that was chosen in order to realize this goal is development integration through increased trade and investment.