Conakry — On the invitation of H.E. Prof. Alpha Condé - the President of the Republic of Guinea, the Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) - Mr Carlos Lopes, paid an official visit to that West African country on 27 June 2015.
During the visit, the two leaders discussed several issues, at length, especially, the support that ECA would provide to Guinea, to help it revive its economy badly shaken by the Ebola scourge.
"This visit has allowed us to reaffirm and strengthen cooperation ties between ECA and Guinea" Mr Lopes said.
"It comes in response to a series of requests made to ECA by highly placed Guinean officials, for technical support in the areas of mines, planning, statistics, trade, industry and feasibility studies on huge infrastructure projects, and [the visit] seeks to provide integrated and coordinated support for a post-Ebola economic resurgence."
Besides the meeting with President Alpha Condé, Mr. Lopes had a meeting with several members of the Guinean Government amongst who were: the State Minister in charge of Finance; the Minister of Environment, Water and Forests; the Minister of Industry, Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises and the Promotion of the Private Sector; the Minister of International Cooperation, the Minister of Mines and Geology and the Minister of Trade. The Director General of the country's National Statistics Office and some technical experts were also present at the meeting. The encounter dwelt on four major areas of collaboration: (i) reinforcing Guinea's planning framework, including its treatment of statistics; (ii) reinforcing expertise in negotiating and carrying out independent analysis mining issues; (iii) consolidating the country's macroeconomic framework in relation to the calls for debt cancellation in the post-Ebola context; and (iv) reinforcing the country's industrial and trade policy and the promotion of competitiveness based on high-value productive sectors. The next phase will consist in translating these priorities into concrete actions and activities laid out in an integrated technical assistance programme to be jointly implemented by ECA and Guinea.
In light of the relevance and strategic importance of the above outlined areas of collaboration, the Executive Secretary of ECA assured Guinean Government officials that he will do all that is possible to design strategies and provide technical assistance to significantly contribute to revive the Economy of the Republic of Guinea in the wake of the Ebola crisis.
It is worthy to note that in prelude to the Executive Secretary's mission to Guinea, a group of experts from various disciplines working for the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, led by the Mr Sylvain Boko of the Commission's Capacity Development Division (CDD), made an advance trip to the country from 24 to 27 June 2015. The team comprised experts from CDD, the African Minerals Development Centre, the African Trade Policy Centre, the African Centre for Statistics and the Sub-regional Office for West Africa of ECA.
