Stanbic Bank on 6th October 2023 held the inaugural East Africa Business Summit at the Muthaiga Golf Club in Nairobi, Kenya. Under the theme “The Case for Economic Optimism for East Africa,” the event brought together business leaders and industry experts from across East Africa.
The Summit provided a platform for business leaders to review the region’s socio-economic landscape and deliberate on regional integration, cross-border infrastructure development and how to enable the diaspora to invest at home, facilitate growth of small and medium enterprises and empower marginalised groups, particularly women and agriculture.
This comes on the back of an African Development Bank’s East Africa Economic Outlook Report, 2023, which shows that the East Africa region will register the highest economic performance on the continent in 2023 and 2024 of 5.1% and 5.8% respectively.
“The East Africa Business Summit is a celebration of our region’s potential and resilience. It underscores our unwavering commitment to fostering collaboration between the public and private sectors, harnessing the strength of partnerships to drive economic growth,” Mr Mr Patrick Mweheire, Regional Chief Executive of Standard Bank Group.
Mr Mweheire said the private and public sectors need to collaborate more, adding that countries in East Africa should significantly drive trade with each other, “so we can transform the economic growth in the region.”
Stanbic Bank Kenya and South Sudan CEO Joshua Oigara noted with optimism the key to unlock growth. “We cannot grow the economy if we do not invest significantly in agriculture,” Mr Oigara said. “We have so much potential we can unlock in this sector for East Africa.”
On his part, Mr Jackson Rwegasira Manzi, Chief Executive Stanbic Bank Tanzania, said: “We need to integrate mineral extraction with manufacturing in our region to allow us to connect with the global value chains. To bring future Giga factories to East Africa like Tesla, will take smart collaboration between private sector and governments to work on a long-term plan to build local expertise and an attractive business environment.”
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