‘We want Africa’s free trade area to be industrial zone not consumption zone’: AfDB official

CAIRO - 13 June 2021: Deputy Director General of the African Development Bank (AfDB) Group for North Africa and Egypt Country Manager Malinne Blomberg said Sunday in IPAs Africa Forum 1 “we don’t want the [African continental] free trade area to be a consumption zone. We want to be an industrial zone.” 

 

Blomberg added that the AfDB supports “the industrial value chains across the continent.” 

 

Similarly, she stressed the salience of “project preparation” by both governments and the private sector. 

 

The former will be able to know if the infrastructure needed to accomplish certain projects is available, and hence, decide whether to approve their implementation or not. 

 

The latter will be able to know the possibility of turning specific ideas into projects before embarking on the execution. 

 

However, the private sector will solely be able to carry out such studies, if the business environment is predictable. 

 

Some stakeholders “think that studies are not worth the resources put into them but that is not true,” Blomberg assorted. 

 

She further stated that the AfDB is designing funding programs targeted at youths, “who have great ideas” but lack the resources.