UNILEVER African Regional Group says it will support the New Economic Partnership for African Development (Nepad) as a way of contributing to economic growth of the continent.

Unilever director for Africa Anthony Lenstra said at the weekend in Lusaka that industry needed to assist countries in which they were operating as a way of getting out of the current poverty situation.

Mr Lenstra said his firm, the umbrella company of Lever Brothers, would continue investing in Africa as the continent had the potential and available opportunities for developing businesses.

He said African governments needed to target growth of between five to six per cent annually in real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to be able to tackle poverty problems.

Mr Lenstra said Unilever believed efforts in developing business in Africa would work, as evidenced from the general increase in the GDPs and incomes of most African countries.

He said African governments needed to work with the private sector and industry in a broader sense to be able to achieve the targeted growth.

He also challenged host countries to take advantage of regional groupings which had become attractive trading blocks with huge market potential.

African countries also needed to attract foreign industry in order to build up local resource bases.

Unilever operated in South-East, East and West Africa and the strategy adopted was to specialise in production in different countries.

"We're moving towards the direction of specialised production and distribution into the Comesa Free Trade Area (FTA)," he said.