"Participation Builds Unity"
"MADE IN AFRICA - FOR AFRICA"
"Participation Builds Unity"
"MADE IN AFRICA - FOR AFRICA"
A 'FDA PRESS RELEASE
HELPING AFRICA DO IT ON HER OWN
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Helping Africa do it on her own!
“Africa needs to stand as one and seek solutions within Africa for Africa. We need to accept the fact that First World powers will drop Africa from the development agenda at the ‘drop of a hat’. But Africa is capable of providing for herself - from within - we just need to coordinate our efforts,” says Peter Metcalfe, Chairman of the FDA - Foundation for the Development of Africa.
The ATC - Africa Trade Centre will provide the platform for such coordination. ”For many years I had the vision of establishing an Africa Trade Centre, where all of Africa's opportunities could be made available within a complex that would provide all the necessary information, regulation, supply chain services, logistics and a host of value add services when trading with or within Africa - a 'one-stop' trade shop,” explains Metcalfe.
Recently, a local Tshwane (Pretoria) consortium received a mandate from The City of Tshwane (Pretoria) to deliver The Tshwane ICC (International Convention Centre) in Centurion, Tshwane (Pretoria). This development concession, on prime land adjacent to the Centurion CBD, will provide for a 4/5 star hotel complex, the Tshwane ICC and now also the Africa Trade Centre.
The complex/precinct will be known as the Africa Gateway and will comprise a business hub where businesspeople from all over the continent and the world will have access to facilities and infrastructure required to trade with counterparts from across the continent.
On offer will be office space specially prepared for Commercial Attaché representation and for various trade organisations such as governmental trade offices, customs and excise, revenue services and investment promotion agencies. Private initiative representation such as Chambers of Commerce and business, banks and financial services, import-export experts, freight and logistics companies will also be accommodated. Business services available will include multilingual reception, secretarial and message services, state-of-the-art communication facilities, rentals, research, translators and much more.
“The Head Office of the FDA - Foundation for the Development of Africa will be accommodated in this Africa Trade Centre and it is our intention to generate the largest database of products and services serving Africa available to the world.
“The FDA Partner Programme has been initiated to facilitate this database and participation is promising. I have no doubt this database will grow extensively as the Africa Trade Centre becomes a reality. Occupation of the ACT – Africa Trade Centre is scheduled to coincide with the 2010 World Cup Soccer, if not earlier.
“This is a major boost for Africa’s development,” says Metcalfe, “and will provide a platform sorely needed in Africa for Africans to trade with each other, and to facilitate trade with the rest of the world, therefore building a future that is bright and prosperous, without having to rely on and wait for support from the rest of the world. It is a realisation of one of the FDA’s long-held mottos: Less Aid, Let’s trade!”
Events over the last few weeks have clearly indicated how the focus of world-leaders can be manipulated. The tragic turmoil in the Middle East resulted in the discussions at the G8 Summit in St Petersburg, Russia, being disrupted. Sadly it took weeks of deliberations to find an acceptable UN Resolution to secure peace in the Middle East, keeping world-leaders somewhat pre-occupied almost disrupting holiday plans of some. And then, just as we saw ‘light at the end of the tunnel’, the focus shifted, almost disrupting the resolution process with an ‘extreme’ bomb security alert causing extensive airport chaos especially at Heathrow Airport. Add all these issues to the recent abandoning of the World Trade Organisation's trade talks, this after five years of deliberations, to ‘ensure the parallel elimination of all forms of export subsidies and disciplines on all export measures with equivalent effect by 2010’ and the result equates to Africa finding herself isolated and vulnerable.
But most importantly, the Africa Trade Centre will be a hub of networking opportunities, including a transparent proactive introduction service, something the FDA - Foundation for the Development of Africa has been providing for many years.
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