Kinshasa, October 14th, 2021 (CPA).- The President of the Republic, Felix Tshisekedi, returned to Kinshasa, on Thursday afternoon, at the end of his official visit to the United Arab Emirates where he arrived last Saturday, at the invitation of the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Supreme Deputy Commander of the Emirati Armed Forces, Mohamed Ben Zayed Al-Nahyan.
The President of the Republic visited Khalifa Tower, a 150-story building and one of the tallest in the world, before flying to DRC via the presidential airfield in Dubai, it is said.
The Head of State’s exchanges with Emirati politicians and businessmen focused mainly on bilateral cooperation, through a win-win partnership, as well as the investment opportunities of this federal state in infrastructure, energy, health, mines, security and defense, it is said.
President Tshisekedi supervised the signing of 7 memoranda of understanding on Tuesday during a bilateral meeting organized at the presidential pavilion of “EXPO 2020 Dubai”, between his delegation and that of Emirati economic operators, led by His Highness the Sovereign of Dubai and Vice-President of the Federation of the United Arab Emirates.
President Felix Tshisekedi calls on the United Arab Emirates to join in the modernization of DRC
The President of the Democratic Republic of Congo and current President of the African Union, Felix Tshisekedi, invited on Wednesday in his speech to the meeting of “Global Business Forum Africa 2021” in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, as well as the emerging countries, to « join in the great work of modernization » of DRC, « one of the most important countries of the African continent ».
“The Democratic Republic of Congo aspires to become, in the coming years, a benchmark in Africa. This is why my country is planning to launch a vast program of reconstruction and modernization in order to create attractive conditions for new investments, « he told participants in this Forum.
The Head of State said he was particularly satisfied with « the rich experience of the United Arab Emirates in the establishment of contractual and financial engineering capacities appropriate to Public Private Partnerships », targeted, among the sectors requesting this strengthening of cooperation links, infrastructure, energy, human resource development, small and medium-sized enterprises, agriculture as well as new information and communication technologies.
For him, this determination of the Congolese government to focus on the development of infrastructure and the increase in energy production justifies « far-reaching reforms, some of which, already in the form of laws and other regulatory texts, to radically change the business climate and investments”.
« With an area of 2,345,000 km2, its access to nine neighboring countries, its 80 million inhabitants, 54% of whom are under 20 years old, its extraordinary hydroelectric potential, with the 2nd largest forest reserve in the world, its enormous mining and hydrocarbon potential, not to mention its 80 million hectares of arable land, the Democratic Republic of Congo offers immense opportunities”, underlined President Félix Tshisekedi, to present the assets of his country.
For the integration of Africa into the global economy
The Congolese Head of State and President-in-Office of AU then made a plea for the integration of Africa into the global economy. A possible integration, according to him, « the African countries having worked hard to adopt appropriate macroeconomic policies ».
Africa itself faces challenges. Its share in world trade is still low, noted President Felix Tshisekedi, adding that « it is in this context that Africa needs more investment and technology transfer, more access to markets developed countries, and especially more investment in infrastructure sectors ”.
However, the then Chairman of AU noted that “Africa is the continent with the strongest economic growth in recent years (more than 5% per year on average since 2000). And although Africa’s growth is largely driven by oil and mining products, not all African champions of growth are major exporters of raw products, as Ethiopia’s experience demonstrates. «
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