Egypt to host three-day conference 'Africa 2017 Forum

The Ministry of Investment and International Cooperation of Egypt and COMESA Regional Investment Agency have announced the dates for Africa 2017, a high-level forum offering participants an unparalleled platform for promoting trade and investment within Africa. The forum will be attended by Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, President of the Arab Republic of Egypt on 7-9 December 2017, in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.

The three-day conference will convene high-level delegations of leaders in business and policy from across Africa and worldwide, including heads of state and some of the most important CEOs of the continent.

Africa 2017 will kick-off with a Young Entrepreneurs Day (YED) that will bring together emerging entrepreneurs with more established ones, in addition to mentors, start-up hubs, angel investors and venture capital firms, to share ideas, network and help drive further the business ideas of tomorrow. The Africa 2017 YED has partnered with top-notch incubators, entrepreneurship programmes and VC funds. Egypt is known across Africa and the Middle East to have developed pro-innovation ecosystems where emerging entrepreneurs have been able to flourish.

In 2015, Egypt hosted the Tripartite Summit where a free trade agreement was signed, bringing together three regional economic communities, SADC, EAC and COMESA, effectively creating, with its 26 Member States, the largest trading block on the continent. This ‘borderless economy’ would rank as 15th in the world in terms of GDP.