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Transcript of African Finance Ministers Press Briefing
April 16, 2016
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IMF COMMUNICATIONS DEPARTMENT |
| Media Relations |
|---|
| E-mail: media@imf.org |
| Phone: 202-623-7100 |
April 16, 2016
IMF COMMUNICATIONS DEPARTMENT |
| Media Relations |
|---|
| E-mail: media@imf.org |
| Phone: 202-623-7100 |
Webcast of the press briefing  |
MR. KANYEGIRIRE: Good morning. My name is Andrew Kanyegirire. I am with the Communications team here at the IMF. Thank you for joining us this morning.
Welcome to the press briefing by the African Finance Ministers, who managed to take some time out of their busy schedules to be here with us. We don't have a lot of time. Each of them will make opening remarks for about 5 minutes strictly and very briefly, 5 minutes, after which we shall open the floor to some questions.
So, to my immediate right is Minister of Finance from Chad, Mr. Mahamat Alamine Bourma Treye. To his right is the Minister from Swaziland, Mr. Martin Diamini. To his right is the Minister from Burkina Faso, Madame Rosine Coulibaly. At the end of the table, extreme right, is the Minister from Somalia, Mohamed Ibrahim.
I will now invite the Minister from Chad to make some opening remarks, and we shall then take it from there. Thank you.
MINISTER BOURMA TREYE: Merci beaucoup. Thank you very much for offering me this opportunity. For these spring meetings, I would like to speak about my country's situation. As you know, Chad is a country located in the very heart of Africa between East Africa, West Africa, North Africa, and Central Africa. It is a country of the Sahel region, so finding itself in this strategic position, it faces several situations for shocks.
The first shock is the drop in the price of raw material and oil, which has in turn led to a drop of over 60 percent in our budget revenue. The second shock is the security shock, which forces Chad to pursue important stabilization efforts in the sub region.
You might recall that Chad has had interventions with Mali, Cameroon, Nigeria, in Central Africa, in the fight against Boko Haram, and Chad presently with a border of over 1,000 kilometers with Libya is facing Daesh. This is not just a threat to Africa or to the sub region. In fact, it is a global threat.
We also face a humanitarian shock. It is the corollary of the security shock with a massive flow of displaced refugees on our territory. We have over 1.5 million refugees and displaced persons in our territory, coming from Sudan fleeing the Darfur crisis. They come from the west, from Nigeria, from Niger. They come from the DRC in the south, also experiencing problems itself.
For the countries in the Sahel region, we also face the weather struggles as the drying out of our land can drought in several areas, exacerbating poverty in our country. Over 2 million of our federal citizens are exposed to this latent disaster.
This in brief is our situation in Chad. It is a daunting challenge that we face and that we try to overcome with great efforts. Thank you.
MINISTER DLAMINI: Thank you. Swaziland is on the southern part of Africa, bordered by South Africa, and on the east by Mozambique. We are dependent mostly on sugar exports. As commodity exporters in middle income countries, we have been adversely affected by the global downturn in the economy.
Swaziland's economy has continued to grow at a much lower pace mainly due to Europe and South Africa's slow down, being our major trading partners. One of the shocks that we have experienced is climate change, which pose significant macro critical challenges for our country. In the past, the country experienced episodes of drought, of floods, every 5 years to 10 years, but lately, the pattern has changed and the frequency of natural disasters has intensified.
Swaziland, like many other countries in the Southern Africa region, is currently facing severe drought conditions affecting agriculture, especially subsistence, destruction of water and power supply, fueling inflation and adding pressures.
Given the increasing frequency of natural disasters, it is important that small states like Swaziland are equipped with the right capacity to build buffers so they are in a position to mitigate the effects of natural disasters on the population.
Therefore, commitments of the international community to the 2015 Paris Agreement is critical in support of countries, especially small states, to adopt.
In addition to the external shocks, Swaziland is a member of the Customs Union together with Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, and South Africa, dependent on Customs Union revenue, which constitutes up to 50 percent of total revenue for the country. Currently, the country is facing a 30 percent decline on Customs Union revenue, hence, the slowdown in implementation of development projects.
We have responded in the following manner to these shocks. We have embarked on public finance management reforms. We have introduced institutional changes that will assist us to reduce our dependency on the Customs revenue receipts by creating a sovereign revenue authority, which has up to now reduced substantially our dependency on Customs revenue receipts through increased domestic revenue collections.
We have undertaken procurement reforms by introducing a procurement act, and we are in parliament right now introducing the public finance management act.
In terms of mitigating climate changes, we have established a natural disaster management agency, which is responsible in coordinating responses to natural disasters, including those relating to climate change. In this connection, we have provided a project of 305 million in our local currency, which taken into consideration with the total plan of a national response in mitigation will be equivalent to $1.2 billion in U.S. dollars.
We have also some plans to improve our agriculture and water management systems. Thank you.
MINISTER COULIBALY: Thank you. To begin with, I'd like to say good morning, dear friends from the media and the press. Thank you for coming here for this exchange with all of us. It is for me an honor to speak about my country, Burkina Faso. For those of you who don't know my country, we have a total of 19 million inhabitants, mostly they are young. It is a country located in Western Africa.
We have experienced our fair number of shocks as well, significant shocks at that. A political shock, political, given that the country has gone through a period of political turbulence.
We had attempted coup d'états. There was in fact a popular resurrection by the youth which finally led to the authorities coming to an agreement on a transition program, and then to organize elections, which took place in November 2015. These elections were recognized by the entire international community as being transparent and inclusive. As a result, the outcome of the elections led to the new government with President Roch Marc Christian Kabore as Head of State and Prime Minister Paul Kaba Thieba.
I am the Minister of Economy, Finance, and Development, and it is a difficult task. After the political shock, there was a security related shock. Unfortunately, we suffered terrorist attacks. It happened in our country, but it also happened in more developed countries than Burkina Faso. They, too, have experienced similar shocks.
We also have the effects of climate change. Our country, unfortunately, over the past five or six years had a significant growth rate, approximately 6.2 percent in 2012, but as I said, unfortunately, due to the shocks, and I say climate related effects or shocks, I refer to the rainy season which we had no more than three consecutive months of rain over the course of the year, so we had to control water.
This is a country in the region of the Sahel, so we had to show that our country can be resilient. In 2014 and 2015, we had a growth rate of 4 percent, and we know how the global economies are behaving at present, so we could say that by comparison, ours is quite resilient.
We should note, however, that we are also suffering from shocks with the raw material and the global prices and the downward trend, and we are the main producer of cotton in the region in Africa. We have about 60,000 tons of cotton, which provide a livelihood to approximately 2 to 3 million people. As you can see, this is quite significant, and the shock here could lead to a vulnerability whenever the global cost of cotton is low.
We are cotton producers, and additionally, we are gold producers. It's important to note that the costs have gone down, but we hope that the situation will change.
It is an agricultural country, and our current priorities at the governmental level have been implemented. The government set out developmental strategies for the 2020 time frame. Among these development priorities, we have three main thrusts that we are currently working on, and we hope that this will ensure continuity.
We encourage our partners to work in Burkina Faso assisting us with our development priorities, given that after we drafted the national economic and social development program, we planned on organizing a roundtable of technical and financial partners in June, if possible. If not, by the end of September.
Now, the three thrusts I spoke about are three pillars. The three pillars that we are currently working are first, inclusive growth. We noted that it was important for us to ensure that growth be anchored on rooting people out of poverty. It's important this takes place, as well as working with the youth. We have engaged the youth through our inclusive growth pillar. This is one of the main factors that drives growth.
The second pillar of our priorities are governance related matters. Here we speak of financial governance, of the macroeconomic framework, and what have you, but when we think about governance, we refer not only to economic governance but also to governance understood in terms of equity given that 40 percent of my country's population lives below the threshold of poverty.
As a result, my government decided this was an unfair situation. After we had experienced a significant growth rate of about 6 percent, it was unjustifiable that we had not bucked that trend, so we thought equity related matters were important, and for that reason, we have devoted our efforts to that.
This means access to justice, it means fighting against corruption, and proper transparent management of public resources.
Now, then third pillar is human capital. Development must be focused, as I said, on the youth, on human beings, and on women. For that reason, we plan on investing, in fact, my government has taken several measures in various social sectors, education, and health, all in order to improve human capital in our country.
While this is a preliminary summary of our present situation, I will conclude here, and I look forward to your questions and for further work in order to pursue our level reforms. We will mobilize our own resources in order to finance our own development, and we encourage our allies to assist us in pursuing our development priorities. Thank you.
MINISTER IBRAHIM: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I am very pleased to be here with you today. Just a note, if you're going to quote my name, the correct spelling is not there. It is Mohamed. I think most of you may know how to spell Mohamed, so it's okay.
What I would like to ask you today is to adjust your lens. Somalia is no longer the Somalia we were talking 20 years ago, 10 years ago. Somalia is moving forward, and today, it is a story of progress.
I want to highlight some of those things. First of all, three years ago, we had embarked on a road of democratization. We have adopted a federal system, which is a new concept for Somalia after decades of civil war.
What I am pleased to share with you today is that we have formed four states of sub-nationals in the last three years. There is one more to be formed. Also, we come to the end of the four year period, so this year is an election year, and different from what we have seen before. We are engaged with the Somalia Nationals. There is wide consultation.
Eventually, about three days ago, there was a consensus about how we go about the election process for 2016. We are looking forward to a smooth election process for this year.
Secondly, security is a major factor for us. In 2011, Mogadishu was controlled by Al-Shabaab. Today, I am very pleased to advise you that less than 5 percent of the terrorist groups are controlling. Yes, we are still suffering terrorist attacks in a number of civil centers, but we are very confident we will eventually defeat the terrorist groups in Somalia.
Thirdly, our economics are also improving. Last year, we had seen a growth of 3.7 percent, and this year, we expect a similar number, although some parts of the country are facing severe droughts.
We also embarked on an aggressive financial governance reform agenda. We have managed to implement public financial management (PFM). We have managed to implement a financial information system across all the entities of the government. We have created key institutions like the Office of Auditor General, and also we have strengthened the work of the Central Bank of Somalia.
We are all aware that all of these things could not happen in a vacuum. So, we need to find a proper legislative framework for all the reforms we are doing. I am very pleased to share with you also that we have a number of key institutions and legislation, including a procurement act, the audit bill, investment, and of lately, AML/CFT law.
As you are all aware, Somalia relies heavily on remittance. Half of our national gross income comes from remittance. The issue with de-risking is affecting us economically and socially. So, we are making a lot of progress in that area to reform our banking sector, to formalize our banking sector, and also to supervise the NGOs and money transfer organizations.
We are very thankful for the support we have received from a number of advanced countries. As has been highlighted here as well, Somalia's population is very young. Twenty percent of our population are less than 30 years old. It is very essential for us to find for those young people an education and also jobs for them. Otherwise, they will joining terrorist groups and the security will be an issue for us.
So, in order to do that, we need to develop our economics. Somalia is blessed with rich natural resources, abundant natural resources. We have to get large investments for that. To do that, we need to go through a process that many countries have gone through. Somalia's external debt is $5.4 billion. Without addressing that issue, we will not have real growth in Somalia. For that reason, we had engaged with the Fund three years ago, and we have really achieved a lot of things through that engagement.
Some of the modest ones is that Somalia concluded is its first Article IV discussion in 26 years last July. For us, it is a milestone to come back to the global world. Also, I am very pleased to share with you a week ago, we also concluded an agreement with the Fund to embark on a self-monitoring program. We hope that will lead us to access to more financial resources and access to financing.
Lastly, Somalia suffers from many, many global issues. IDBs, refugees, immigration, poverty, terrorism, security. We are facing all those challenges, but despite all those challenges, we are committed to reform our country, to build institutions, and to move forward.
I will stop there, and I'm more than happy to answer any questions. Thank you.
QUESTIONER: My question is for Mrs. Coulibaly. She spoke about organizing a roundtable to finance development in her country that is coming out of a transition period.
I'd like to understand the goals pursued by this roundtable. In other words, what is the volume of funds to be mobilized for the country for its development? I'd like to understand better the prospects for growth in Burkina Faso in 2016.
MINISTER COULIBALY: Thank you very much for your question and for your interest. A roundtable, as you know, has two major goals. The first goal of the roundtable is to have a conference with partners and to have a dialogue on policy, in other words, which are the development policies for the country in a global manner, but also the sector priorities.
So, the first point of the dialogue is to talk about development policy for the country, but the second element is to mobilize resources. You asked for an amount. Well, right now, we are focusing on 10 billion CFA francs. That is at least what we anticipate, it's the target we have set for mobilization.
Now, in addition, when having a dialogue on policy, we also are going to focus on the reforms that we want to undertake. That's why I spoke about combatting corruption, transparency, managing public resources, and mobilization of internal monies.
The tax service needs to be reformed. There are many people who don't even pay taxes, which we consider unacceptable. Everyone has to contribute to the development of the country.
Our discussions also show that in general in the world of development, you can mobilize resources but then can't put them into effect. It's important for us to have mechanisms in place to rapidly implement projects, because what is important is that whatever we do should have an impact on population.
We are working on the reform of utility prices so this is done transparently and based on fairness, and it must also be speedy so we can implement our projects.
There is yet another element for the roundtable, the monitoring. In our country, we believe that it is important for us to do this. If I receive a CFA franc or a euro or a dollar, we need to be able to be accountable for that and say what it was spent on. So, there needs to be continuity. You, the men and women of the media are the ones who can convey the information, share it with others, and in that way, reach out to the largest number of people to ensure that there is full mobilization within Burkina Faso, because when we are talking about demographic dividend, we should be talking about democratic dividend when democracy is not always what we are sharing most frequently.
QUESTIONER: I am going to ask my question in French to the Minister of Finance of Chad and the Minister of Finance of Burkina Faso.
Madam Minister, what do you think about agriculture in Burkina Faso, what are you going to do when they are using -- has this reduced the quality of cotton? I'd like to hear your viewpoint about this.
For Minister Bourma Treye of Chad, we know that your president is doing a lot. You did mention my country, Mali, and we know what he has been doing. What is he doing for the population of Chad given the political crisis of the country and support from the international community? Do you believe this is sufficient to calm the situation in Chad?
MINISTER BOURMA TREYE: Thank you very much. You have just taught me the fact that there is political unhappiness. I think that in Chad, as I pointed out, we confront many challenges. First, we have the economic challenge, as I mentioned earlier, with the drop in commodity prices. Chad has faced many problems. The first one being that 60 to 70 percent of our resources are generated by oil.
I'm talking here of the budget revenue with the drop in crude oil prices between 2013 when we had a 13.6 percent growth rate with projections of 1.5 percent now in 2016. So, that's a major problem.
Another problem I mentioned is security. As you know, Chad has intervened in your country. We have also been present in other countries. Chad is on a permanent mobilization basis to support neighboring and brotherly countries.
Mobilization in Chad requires major efforts, as I pointed out earlier, because of the strategic position of Chad. The country faces many security challenges. I mentioned before we have Boko Haram on one hand, but I think our major concern is Daesh. If other countries fall and if we fall, it is going to impact other countries, and these are issues that we need to confront.
This security situation has brought about a new problem because we are no longer able to trade with neighboring countries such as Nigeria. We have a major agricultural production. We have a large number of livestock in Chad which is usually traded with Niger, but right now, the borders are closed. On the one hand, we don't have the oil income, and on the other hand, we have fiscal issues.
These are some of the problems in Chad. I spoke about drought and other climate change impacts. Of the 25,000 square kilometers, Chad is reduced today to one-tenth.
We are asking the international community to mobilize resources and aid to assist us and help pull us out of this situation. Given all these constraints, my country is currently carrying out an economic and financial program with the support of the IMF, despite all the constraints this entails. We want to benefit from the expertise of the IMF, its advice, and its support.
We value the impact of the IMF, the World Bank, and other technical and financial partners, such as the African Development Bank and the European Union in order to achieve macroeconomic stability and be able to confront the difficult situation the country is currently going through.
As I said, the two pillars of economy in our country are agriculture and livestock. The government has focused on diversification of the economy of the country right now. This diversification is going to require the support from everyone, including our partners.
Thus far, assistance by the international community is very significant, but nonetheless, insufficient given the tremendous challenges Chad faces, and with regard to the political situation, Chad is a democratic country that has adopted this phase very strongly. We have just had elections and are awaiting the outcomes.
Whenever there is a situation like this in Africa and elsewhere, there are voices that are raised, and that is noble. That happens in democracy, that is the rule. We can't force people to remain quiet, to not express their views and have demonstrations. I think in this sense, Chad is an example to be followed.
MINISTER COULIBALY: I thank you for your question, Madam. We all know that we are living in a globalized world. This means that we have to also learn from others. We have to learn from outcomes of research. We have to learn from innovation in order to move ahead faster.
In Africa, we don't want to adopt the growth plans or development plans of some countries, but we want to develop our own learning from what really works. That we can learn through research.
The government at the time, not our government, thought given that this is a very dry country, that in order to increase cotton productivity, it was necessary to use the results of research, and that is why the government did adopt a goal for the genetically modified cotton.
Afterwards, we realized, and you pointed this out, Madam, you are absolutely right, that the length of fibers in the GM cotton doesn't allow the Bikaneri cotton to remain as competitive as it used to be, and that is why the government met at the highest level and determined it's not possible, we must not continue along this path, if a bad choice was made, we need to back track. So, the government decided to go back to conventional cotton.
Let me also add the following. The financial impact of this decision is nonetheless $50 billion that needs to be found, $20 million in order to help the producers, because with the loss in price achieved by cotton, many farmers have been affected. I told you there are thousands of families living from cotton production.
So, the government decided, and this is based on a bill presented to parliament, that we are going to set aside $20 billion to support the cotton price for producers.
Now, going back to conventional cotton that is going to require more imports. It's going to be fertilizer, pesticides, and this will require 30 billion CFA francs.
That is the situation. This is a sovereign decision by the government. It has had a financial impact. We need to find those resources. Of course, we count on your support because this is a responsible normal choice the government had to adopt.
I think the journalist asked about growth prospects. I didn't answer that question, I'm sorry. The prospects are good, 5.2 percent in 2016, 6 percent for 2017. Indeed, we do believe that if the program that we intend to implement receives support from our partners, then we will be able to once again boost growth as we have already done. Actually, 4 percent is not a bad rate, but we want to increase and be able to recover the growth we experienced in the past.
MR. KANYEGIRIRE: At this stage, I will ask if there is anybody with a question for either Mr. Dlamini, the Minister from Swaziland, or the Minister from Somalia. QUESTIONER: My question is for Minister Dlamini. Minister, I was hoping that perhaps you could just shed some light on what is the status, what progress have you made in terms of regaining your preferences with the African Growth and Opportunity Act, the program offered by the United States.
And secondly, I just wanted to get an understanding in terms of there has been much talk about regional integration at these meetings, and I wondered what you believe, whether that is possible, how it can be done to assist an economy such as Swaziland, and also if you could just talk about what Swaziland is doing in terms of export diversification at the moment. MINISTER DLAMINI: Thank you. Let me begin with the last question. There is quite a strong sort of move towards regional integration. In effect, Swaziland, Botswana, Lesotho, now Libya and South Africa are in a regional integration that dates back some 100 years ago.
Of course, the past points to an arrangement where there is a revenue sharing sort of agreement among the member countries, but now since the establishment of a board that includes the head of states, which is the Summit, we have been tasked to look at a more economic integrating type of approach to the Customs Union arrangement.
We have been tasked to look at industrialization. We have been tasked to look at areas where each member country will benefit as a member of the Customs Union.
Of course, some member countries, including Swaziland, have been so much dependent on the revenue that is derived from the Customs Union sharing formula, but now, there is a move that we sort of move away from dependency and create an area where the integration will benefit all the member countries, and I believe Swaziland is a country who will benefit quite a lot in terms of exchange, for instance, of technology, goods and services, and other sort of areas that could be derived in expanding the mandate of the Customs Union.
We are also in another sort of regional integration arrangement which is SADC, very active in all sectors. It is rather wide as compared to the Southern Customs Union in terms of trade, but it also provides economies of scale in terms of the population that is within the area, to the extent that any country, particularly the size of Swaziland, where the population is low, it would benefit through growth rate and through other things within SADC, which grew its economy.
The first question?
QUESTIONER: With regard to AGOA.
MINISTER DLAMINI: Thank you. Recently, we lost out to AGOA because there was some areas involving relations with our workers union and also political issues. The government of Swaziland has in effect been in discussions with the United States government, and there are areas where we were told to sort of amend our statues so as to be able to return to AGOA.
One of the areas, for instance, is in the area which involves the police, when there are strike actions, we have already gone to parliament to address that. The other one is about a terrorism act. Again, there was an issue of definitions, and we have gone to parliament to address that.
In other words, our government is moving towards obtaining the status that it had before AGOA was suspended.
QUESTIONER: My question is for all four Ministers, whether countries in Africa now see the need to go private sector first to really try to find the private sector solutions because bilateral, multilateral, and non-government organizations seem to be way too slow at addressing the needs that you have. We see Daesh and ISIS. They are great at cross border cooperation. They work very well together. They have taken over half of North Africa. They do business together. You see the same thing with the private sector, and on a lighter note, would you be supportive of naming President Obama the next African Union president after his presidency ends next year? MR. KANYEGIRIRE: We will start with the Minister from Somalia, please.
MINISTER IBRAHIM: The first part, I can't agree more in terms of having the private sector at the forefront of economic recovery. In the case of Somalia, before the civil war, everything was state run. Now, for the last two decades, the private sector has been taking the lead in the private market, and significant progress in some areas like telecommunications, et cetera.
Going forward, we are not kidding ourselves that yes, we need bilateral and multilateral support for financing, but we are putting the necessary framework in place to create a culture and also an environment conducive enough for the private sector to invest in Somalia.
So, one of the things that we have started now doing is the procurement act, the concession contract as well, to attract the private sector in the form of a PPP as well. So, I think yes, that's one of the issues that we are also dealing with in parallel with getting support from the international community. Thank you.
MINISTER COULIBALY: Thank you very much. I do apologize, I thought Obama was the president of the United States. I didn't think he would really be able to come to the African Union. That's just to respond to your joke.
Let me respond about the private sector. Studies have shown and you probably know this, that in order for a country to grow and reach emergence, it is necessary to have massive investments so that the private sector can be fully involved.
First, we have the business environment and doing business indicated from our country, our country has had reforms and we are still working on this. We are also investing in energy with private partners also, precisely so that the outputs from the factories are not overly expensive, then we have the facilities that can be provided for investments, et cetera, in addition to highway infrastructure because we are very far from the ocean, which is difficult and has to be understood. So, we're working on that.
Somebody spoke about regional integration, another important aspect. In order for the private sector to have a market, it's necessary to have demand, and demand in states of 15 to 20 million inhabitants is insufficient. That is why the regional integration partnerships are in a larger space, allowing investors to have an attractive market. That is what we are doing in Western Africa. We are part of an integration center, the WACMIC, and we have convergence for all states to be able to participate.
So, if you have billions of dollars to invest, be assured Burkina is a good place to make that investment.
MR. KANYEGIRIRE: Minister Dlamini
MINISTER DLAMINI: Thank you. I agree with my colleague from Burkina Faso. First, the responsibility of government really is to lay a foundation for good infrastructure, so that private sector can be sort of attracted into the country.
Many countries have been confronted with a number of challenges, particularly in Africa, in trying to grow countries through PPPs because the demand on the private sector is such that the private sector's first call is making profits. On the other hand, the first call for governments is to increase the social well-being of the population. So, those two concepts are always in collusion, and unless there is a way in which one can bring those two concepts together for the benefit of the private sector and the benefit of government, it is still difficult to get private sector participation in a number of projects in Africa.
But to make an example, recently, as I indicated in my introductory statement, I said that our country was facing a decline in our revenue source, so in order to keep up the sort of growth process through investments, we have embarked on introducing the private sector, particularly for infrastructural type of projects, and of course, it is quite expensive to do so, but we have found it is the way forward in which our countries could develop the pace of development.
MR. KANYEGIRIRE: Minister from Chad, please.
MINISTER BOURMA TREYE: Thank you very much. Concerning President Obama, my colleague responded, he has many things to do. He may think he wants to retire in Africa, going back to his origins. So, that answers one question.
Moving now to the private sector, I think the government of Chad has already decided to have diversification in our economy. This requires greater involvement by the private sector. Programs have been launched, and Chad is really a virgin country, willing to work with the private sector from throughout the world by providing them with different incentives.
We have had many problems in the recent past in Chad because of the war, and stability only came to my country in 2008. Prior to that, we were able to exploit oil, but the state is not a large oil producer. The small amount that was produced was managed by a law that devotes more than 50 percent for social sectors, national education, health, rural development, in other words, agriculture and livestock, as well as environment.
A substantial portion also is being used to give more dynamics to the private sector. So, partners coming into Chad, especially from the private sector, will be very welcomed.
Not so long ago, we reformed the Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Chad through a transparent election. This is now a dynamic chamber. Not long ago I approached the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to establish links, links that we want to establish with other countries, especially those who are willing to support Chad to emerge and to develop.
MR. KANYEGIRIRE: Thank you to the Ministers for making the time in your busy schedules to be here with us, much appreciated, and thanks for your time.
In case of any questions, follow-ups, I'm here, my colleague, Lucy, is here. If there are some questions about names and who to contact for what, we can hopefully guide you on that.
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