26 April 2008
Nairobi — East Africa's business leaders are set to meet in Uganda to discuss ways of making the region more competitive in the global market.
Meeting under the auspices of the East African Business Summit, corporate chiefs will engage their public sector counterparts in addressing the challenges facing the region.
The Summit, to be held at Kampala's Serena Hotel from July 17-19 this year, will be the fourth edition and marks its revival after a three-year hiatus. It is being organised by Citi, Deloitte, KPMG, Nation Media Group, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Serena Hotels.
Briefing the media at Nairobi's Serena Hotel on Thursday, Mr Charles Muchene, the Summit chairman, said the meeting seeks to unlock the region's rich human capital potential for economic transformation.
And for the first time, Rwanda will be participating. "This is a visionary forum that aims to transform East Africa into a competitive block globally in the next 20-30 years," said Mr Muchene. He was flanked by CEOs Linus Gitahi of Nation Media Group, Richard Ndung'u of KPMG and Citi's Ade Ayeyemi. He noted that the Summit took the three-year breaker for the organisers to take stock, and make it relevant to the players.
The exclusive invitation-only forum's theme is 'Enhancing East Africa's Competitiveness'. It will be addressed by selected international speakers. The topics were prepared from the feedback received from the 3rd Summit and regional meetings held in Kampala, Kigali and Dar-es-Salaam in February 2008.
They include global and regional competitiveness, growing and managing talent, to achieve innovation through partnerships with learning institutions, and public governance and political structures.
"We would like to learn how countries like India and China have used their manpower and technology to become competitive globally," he said.
Other topics to be discussed are public-private partnerships as an alternative to public infrastructure financing and the innovative use of technology to drive the region's competitiveness.
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