 There will be others in parliaments, in cabinets, in other countries that have not singled out, but you are all respected here, and let me return to invest Africa, all your leadership, executive board and everything that you do, tirelessly, to try and mobilize investments on our continent is well appreciated. Sometimes we don't have the time to say it to you. So thank you so much at this early stage. Catalyzing the continent's trade potential is a very, very important subject that we have today and allow me, ladies and gentlemen, to simply say Africa is growing. Yes, it's that important, but Africa is growing. Africa is the one that should grow because a lot of other continents basically are well up already. And so this is the continent that you can find space, place, your niche to do business in. And I know that I'll make a reference to the African continent of the trade area soon. Secretary Secretary is here, and I think spend time chatting with him, the great things that we're trying to do, we're working to do around making Africa take its place in the global community. Africa is endowed with a lot of resources, but it's true that it's still outside the global trade chains, if you like. That is absolutely true. And this is where, again, the opportunity lies. We have a dynamic population, most of which is young in all our countries. Invariably, I think 60% plus of our populations are below 30 years old. So there is some opportunity in, we have the resource endowment, no question about it, natural resource endowment, the people of course, and the critical minerals. And I'll come to that just in a moment. And it's important that we do recognize that factor as we speak. But largely I did indicate that Africa is still outside, it's still at the edges, the margins of the global trade. Talk about intra-Africa trade, that is even so sad. The numbers make you feel a little bit sick and low. I think we have a lot of work to do on the continent, all of us. Let me contextual put things specific, very clear. The intra-Africa trade is only accounting for 17% of what we do on the continent with each other. Now compare, contrast that with Europe. I think Europe is sitting somewhere in the region over 68% trading with itself, within Europe, and Asia around 59%. So 17% is such a low number that we need to change. And today's topic cannot be more appropriate. Honestly, part of the issue for us as a continent with a young population is that we don't have a choice but to drive growth in Africa, growth that will be able to deliver better lives for our people. I've been speaking in different platforms, so sometimes I assume I've already indicated something here when I have it. But I need to indicate that the population, a young population is anxious, is energetic, and we really, as a matter of the bare minimum, have to drive growth to levels that will make a dent. Not what we always like talking about, poverty reduction. I would like us to flip the coin and talk about wealth creation. Because when we get wealth creation correct, we will have dealt with poverty. And, of course, that assumes redistribution, which is essential in our communities. So how do we catalyze Africa's trade protection? I think the starting point is that we need trade facilitation. I'm sitting at the same table with my colleague, a continent of Africa, a continent of free trade. It's very important that we work and develop on efficient trade facilitation, extremely important. And this would allow for smooth trade amongst our countries and also to trade with others, as I said, Asia, Europe, America and anyone else. It's important at this stage for me to indicate that as Africa claims its place in the global community, it's not displacing anyone, I shall repeat that. As Africa claims its place in the global community around trade, obviously trade could not be investment. You can't trade without investment. It's not possible. It just can't work. Otherwise, you're trading in air. But Africa is not challenging anyone. I've had sentiments around sometimes, say it openly sometimes, quietly in the corners, what's the meaning of Africa rising? What's the meaning of African countries taking their place? Are they going to displace someone? Absolutely not. Africa rising means you have a quality partner. You have a quality cost to your investment, depending on your safety. And it's in the interest of everybody to see Africa rise. I think some of the concerns that we see and I'll talk about just now around credit risk assessment and fairly, you know, if you like, projected because maybe Africa hasn't done its part, yes, but maybe we have not assessed Africa problem. So I think as Africa rise takes its place, it will become easier to do business with the continent than it may be today. I would like to argue. So trade facilitation offers numerous opportunities for African economies, of course, to fully participate in the global value chain and to penetrate international markets as it should be. Trade means selling by. And it must always be due. It can't be one-dimensional. If it's one-dimensional, sooner or later it will be a problem. I think it's important that we sell to each other, we buy from each other. That's extremely important as far as I'm concerned. But trade facilitation is one. Investment in infrastructure is another critical element. Hard infrastructure, roads, railways, bridges, border posts. For a country like us, eight plus one neighbor, border posts. I hope you are aware that Zambia may only be one of the four or five countries in the world which has more than eight or more than eight neighbors. So we are special, isn't it? We are very special. So I would like to argue. But so the infrastructure is very important to move goods from surplus areas, goods and services, obviously, to deficit areas. It is extremely important and it presents an opportunity for people sitting in this room. And from where we sit as a country when we talk of infrastructure is not just the number of projects, it's also the quality of those projects because in the years past we have seen very, very poor quality projects being done and sometimes that creates an indictment on the confidence to do business with each other if we are delivering poor quality works. I'm not saying in country, I'm also saying even when we bring in what we think are competitive skills and capacities from outside Zambia so we need to look at the issues around quality of what we do. Soft infrastructure is very important as well. It's extremely important that we look at issues around finance. Availability, yes, but the correctly priced finance I touched on that issue. I see Moody's are here and many others. In that space of assessing risks on our continent I think we have worked to do absolutely important and I'm not singling out anyone per se. I'm only saying the package of those, us, those who do things that contribute or result in a higher risk assessment for Africa have worked to do including political leaders, public sector managers like myself and others because we have our place to, you know, our role to play in this issue in making sure that the risk profiling of Africa is done correctly. Amongst the responsibilities we have, those in public office is to improve the operating environment, is to ensure that we offer policies that are attractive for investment or trade and those policies are backed by laws and regulations and when that is done, they are consistent. They are not flip-flop. It's important to do that in one country, in our regions. It's important to do that as Sunny. It's important to do that as Kenya. It's important to do that as East African community. So it's a course, the story goes on. Very, very quickly. But also, our partners in this space are yourselves. That's why I mentioned Modus. Our businesses, in your own boardrooms, of course shareholders' meetings, but boardrooms, how do you assess your decisions to invest on the continent? What are you looking for? Are there things that you think we on the political side should deal with so we can de-risk reasonably Africa, not fully, but have a proper profiling? I think that's the point I'm making here. And it's good for everybody. When you do it correctly, it's good for everybody. No question about it. I also want to suggest that the issues around digital trend, digital platforms, technology, I have competent people to discuss that. But for me, I'm looking at it from the point of view of facilitation and we pride ourselves as sadic, I guess, as echoers, maybe because of our centrality location, as telling the East African community of the one-stop border post. I have pushed this issue every time I have an opportunity to speak that we should not be so lowly targeting, if I may use that expression. We should be overambitious. Technology allows us to do what is called no-stop border post, non-stop border post. So there's nothing to pride ourselves over one-stop border post because if we are packing a container to stay in for Zambia, in Beira, in Mozambique, and in Scant, and we share that information through Malawi, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and inside Zambia, into the final destination. Why should that track be stopped at the two, three borders? If we have what we call a common window, single window, we are sharing information and we know what is in there, we can track it, we don't have to physically do it, but technology allows us to do that. So why should the track stop at three, four border post? We're still in our own country's roadblocks, something called roadblocks. Why should those goods be delayed and failed? I think technology allows us to do that. My dear colleague knows this better seated with me at the table. So I've argued to my colleagues at the Saudi table, at the African Union table that we must quickly leverage on technology and the digital platforms to move our goods and services much quicker. We couldn't do that 15 years ago. We can do it now. So I think it's important we do that. We must also have harmonization of trade regulations. There's too much bureaucrats within ourselves. And if there's bureaucrats within ourselves, how does it work when we cross the continents to trade with Asia, with America, with Europe? Makes it more complicated. It also gives room for negative things that we really don't want, other than just no more slowness because of the platforms, because of non-harmonization of trade regulations, laws, of course policies, laws, regulations. It also leads to appetite for other things, which we don't want. Africa must, it must be accepted because we in Africa are pushing it, like colleagues, partners like yourselves to accept the importance of Africa moving away from selling raw materials all the time. Here's the point I was making earlier. That agenda to value our continent, what we produce, raw materials, critical minerals, other things does not threaten your own businesses because Africa hasn't got sufficient capital on its own, most of the countries. There is where you come in. As we want to value our so we can contribute to economic growth at the fastest pace, you have opportunity to invest in the raw extraction in our countries and also in the value addition. So you're not outside our agenda, you're part of our agenda. That's the point I'm making because when we value hard, we'll create benefits. Remember the young population I talked about? Opportunities for jobs, small, medium businesses in the supply chains. So that's where we're going in that direction and I think we are largely agreed as leaders of countries, majority of us, maybe not all but majority of us on the continent. I must quickly tag something I didn't want to leave here that the stability of our continent is important. Peace, security, stability. And we take responsibility for that. The sort of ugly face of increasing heavy handedness on our continent, loss of democracy, human rights, constitutionalism are not good for business. We understand that. But I can assure you that the more we work with each other, the more we have vested interest with each other, creates difficulties for that category of leadership on our continent to increase. The more we work with each other with business, it will be easier to diminish the number of such areas on our continent. But the point is that peace, security, stability is important for investment, for trade of any kind. And we have a lot more work to do as governments, public sector management. Let me return to the issue of value addition a little bit. We know environmental damage has created issues that we debated four and again 20 years ago. Those debates are over. We all accept the damage that we have done to the environment, which threatens sustainability of our own livelihoods and those of our children and their children going forward. So, with green energy, countries like Zambia and others on the continent are host to critical minutes. The projections of business, value of business in that set, is huge. There is a clear line of opportunity for trade for investment with yourselves in this room. Yes, business to business, but also government to government and the chain goes on. I must also indicate that if I didn't raise this issue, I would be missing a better opportunity that this young population on the continent needs skills to support growth of trade investment. Education skills is crucial. And as we talk of critical minutes, please, people in this house, not everybody should rush in that area alone. We must continue investing in skills development. As you've done in your own countries and the returns are heavy, best investment, education, skills, inheritance, best equalizer. I know what I'm talking about as I stand here. Without education, there was never any chance in hell that I could be president of Zambia. Never. Never. For Africans, I'll tell you where I would have been now, but in the village with eight or ten wives today. So education is crucial. Not measured by who holds the skill, but that that's a national regional continental global resource. We want our young people to be competitive in their own countries to be competitive on our continent and globally. I'm very pleased, I know Tristan will be unhappy with me, but I'm very pleased that we are returning back where we were as a country in the 70s. We used to export mining skills across the world. Now we're beginning to do it again. It means there's some things we're doing wrong, but the mining companies are not always happy about it because they'll have trained people and then people are taken out. That's a good thing out of that. It's Tristan here today. I'm talking of respondent. He's not here. But that's another issue that I want to raise. The importance of asking governments to clear rigidities, to clear blockers to business, blockers to trade, have singled out facilitation, harmonization, and other mundane things. But there are inherent things that governments should do, and this government accept this responsibility to ensure that decisions are not unduly delayed. And I want to embarrass first quantum who had issues with the government for 10 years that needed to unlock additional investments. And we sat on that for whatever reason. When we came into office one year, seven months ago, we took a decision that would unlock that investment. And we've done that. And we have an additional $1.3 billion, close to $1.5 billion of investment from first quantum in our country. Joint investment. The government is also a shareholder in that business. And now we are developing the largest nickel mine on the continent. But it took a clear, deliberate action from our new government to unlock that investment. So I think you can count on us on those issues. We may be slow here and there, legal issues do take time, but the good news is that we can work together to identify those blockers, and then we work on them. Then, out of additional investments, we can do more business with each other. We can trade with anyone and everybody in the globe without exclusion, without marginalization, without fear that Africa is displacing someone. I repeat. Now, so in conclusion, I wish to say that catalyzing Africa's trade potential requires concerted efforts. All of us. Governments have a very important role. I touched on it. Businesses. So government to government, business to business, business to government, whichever way you want, multilaterals, bilaterals, all of us have a role to play and must work together. Financial institutions R&D, research and development, we must all work together to get this huge, huge opportunity on the continent to be realized. Cannot continue to talk about opportunities all the time. We must talk about this transaction, that transaction. That's why I've singled out the first quantum transaction in Zamiya. One transaction. If we unlocked just in Zamiya 10, 20 of those transactions, you can do your arithmetic. What would that mean to the Zambian economy and to jobs, business opportunities, in the value chain, supply chain? Great indeed. I think therein lies the importance of us working together. So the environment, as I say, must be right to continue the process. But infrastructure, I touched it on that already. Hard and soft, very important. Harmonization, laws, regulations, procedures, processes, technology, innovation, entrepreneurship, we must support doing things that we're not used to doing all the time. Sometimes it threatens people because that constitutes change. But that's the necessary process. I don't want to call it a necessary evil. I don't want to connect, to connect anything negative in this conversation. So it's a necessary process, not a name. So we're encouraging each other to onboard new ideas, innovation, and also for us on the continent, executive secretary, to avoid reinventing the wheel, to look at what Europe is doing, how they came to where they are, is important. Asia, everyone else. So we can leverage on the things others invested time, money, in research and development, ingenuity, entrepreneurship. So I think we have a rare opportunity as a continent. Look at the people sitting in this room. Who do they represent? There's a lot we can learn from them. And I'm sure they can pick things from us as well. That's where mutuality comes in. So, but we must also promote regional integration. Very important. So we can create platforms at country level, regional level. That takes us to do more business with each other on the continent and with other continents. I think that's important. And I already talked about the issues earlier when I talked about the environment damage that we must never forget in our expansionists and rightly so minds. Never forget the issues of social equity. But I'm quick to say you can't have social equity without value creation. Adam Smith saw it 300 years ago. Still valid today. Environment is important to us. So we can be sustainable in what we do. Ultimately, I think we are members of one household. In Zambia, I'm telling my colleagues in business that don't shout at me or my minister if you see something wrong. We've created a platform that allows you to come and say we don't like this. This is how we can change it. And we'll walk together through. Thank you for your kind attention. Thank you very much indeed for that comprehensive address. And thank you once again for finding the time to be here with us this morning. Mr. President, I recall only too clearly the opposition, the conversations that you and I used to have and the clear, huge ambition you had for your country, your people and your continent. And I think we all need to acknowledge both the progress that you've made but also the challenging situation that you inherited. In a wide-ranging speech, you talked about the African challenge, the importance of intra-African trade, wealth creation via trade facilitation, the adjustment of risk assessment and analysis, the importance of investment in infrastructure, both hard and soft, digital platforms for trade and facilitating inward investment. Value-added business and the importance of that and how that's tied to wealth creation, the importance of stability and, of course, the vital role enhancing human capital through education and skills can play. Mr. President, you're your ministerial team and your royal team are extremely welcome here. You're amongst friends. We wish you and your government well. And it's quite clear that down here has a passionate, thoughtful, articulate and ambitious president. And we wish you well anyway, Mr. President. Thank you very much.