The maiden summit will focus on: “The Role of IPAs in Facilitating Intra African Trade”.

A statement issued in Accra by the Centre said together, the Heads and Representatives of the invited African Investment Promotion Agencies along with colleagues from the World Association of Investment Promotion Agencies (WAIPA); economic and political leaders would explore the critical role Investment Promotion Agencies played in boosting intra-African trade.

There will be further discus­sions on the emerging oppor­tunities AfCFTA continues to present and how various develop­ment actors can leverage them to facilitate trade on the continent and boost socio-economic devel­opment.

Key speakers at this year’s summit are: Mr Yofi Grant, CEO of the GIPC & Sub Sahara’s Director on the steering Commit­tee of the World Association of Investment Promotion Agencies, and Mr Ismail Ersahin, Executive Director for WAIPA.

Mr Grant said, “By 2050, Af­rica will be a quarter of the global population and what if by 2050, Africa was also the recipient of a quarter of global FDI flows?”

He said as the continent looked inward on how it could promote intra-African trade through AfCFTA, Africa needed to redefine how it looked outward overstaying towards its investor partners.

He said the redefinition was best created when they sat around the table and discussed where they were and where they wanted to go.

“This is why we are convening the first of many Annual Assem­bly of African Investment Promo­tion Agencies,” he said.

He said through that they hoped to deepen and continue engagement for the formation of an Association of African Invest­ment Promotion Agencies.

He said the annual summit would set the tone for collective engagements on how develop­ment actors could target, channel, and leverage foreign investment for mutually beneficial outcomes.

He called for cooperation on increasing intra-African invest­ment in Africa, which was relative­ly low compared to other regions of the world.

There are currently about 48 African Investment Promotion Agencies, and the Annual As­sembly of Investment Promotion Agencies will serve as the official gathering for African IPAs to engage in discussions, exchanges, and knowledge sharing on poli­cies, interventions, current trends in FDI, best practices on invest­ment promotion, the AfCFTA, among other topics.