Abul Enein Invites African Leaders to Attend GEM Opening  

Deputy chairman of Egyptian-Japanese business council Abul-Enein attended on Thursday "Public-Private Business Dialogue" forum held on the sidelines of The 7th Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD7).

The forum was attended by Egypt's President Abdel Fattah El Sisi, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and a galaxy of African leaders and heads of state.

In his word before the forum, Abul Enien stressed that African countries are encouraging investment in infrastructure, transport networks, energy, and internet, establishing free economic zones, and liberating trade as a way to give a strong impetus to industry, which represents Africa’s future.

Moreover, he confirmed that the launch of a strong African industrial awakening requires seven key and essential steps, which are:

Firstly, confronting bureaucracy as well as high investment and production costs, with bold measures.

Secondly, the spread of the special economic zones system with incentive laws and legislations to face bureaucracy, attract investment, localize industry and achieve productive specialization.

Thirdly, preparing young people for the future and paying great attention to women as a first step towards a strong Africa. "The preparation of youth requires the development of education and the establishment of training and rehabilitation centers," the Egyptian businessman added. “Africa's real wealth is represented in its vast human resources”.

He also noted that Africa should benefit from the unique Japanese experience in education and training development, through establishing schools, universities, and Japanese training centers in the continent to qualify laborers, localize industries, and discover specialization and creativity skills.

Fourthly, encouraging investment in infrastructure, transport, energy and seaports with unconventional incentives for local and international companies to reduce investment, production and trade costs, and to integrate Africa into the global economy.

Fifthly, Africa should become an active partner in the fourth industrial revolution based on robots and industrial intelligence. “We must develop plans and provide training opportunities in cooperation with development partners to prepare young people for the needs of the new revolution,” Abul Enein noted.

Sixthly, achieving the agriculture development in Africa, and finally, linking small industries to major ones as a way to increase competitiveness and create productive specialization.

Deputy Chairman of Egyptian-Japanese business council ended up his speech by thanking Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) for their great and tangible activity in the African continent.

Moreover, Abul Enein has invited African leaders and heads of states to attend the global historic event of Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) opening next year, noting that GEM is considered one of the world largest museums, which includes about 100, 000 artefacts, 5,000 of which belonging to King Tutankhamen.

Additionally, he confirmed that today marks the 25th anniversary of Cleopatra industrial group products' entry into the Japanese markets. “An inspirational story of struggle and success, through which the industrial group has gained many global awards from different countries including: Japan, Italy, US, and Africa,” Abul Enein said.