 Those countries that do participate in regional markets are the ones that actually have much more stability in terms of their economies. And so building that size of that market is the critical thing. I think that African economies will be able to industrialize better. I think they'll be able to create a lot of jobs. I think to the point you were raising about the issue of global value chains, if you're going to play the global market, the global value chains are important and becomes a stepping stone for you to also get into the global value chains. And quite honestly, I think it will create tremendous amount of jobs, especially for smaller, medium-sized enterprises that can actually trade all across the borders. Now for us, from the African Development Bank side, we just did an assessment looking at companies and how they look at this continental free trade area. And we were asking them, what do they see as the three topmost constraints? And what they told us were quite instructive. The first thing that they say is access to finance. The second one is access to power, electricity. Because obviously, without electricity, what can you do? And the third one is political stability, these three things. So I'll make a few comments about this. If you take the case of access to finance, that access to finance is much more limited, actually, for the smaller, medium-sized enterprises that you just mentioned. They account for about 75% of all the businesses, but only 20% of them actually have access to bank accounts as small and medium-sized enterprises. So getting access to finance for the small guys to play in this big area is the key. So that is not just a market for the big guys to play. Now at the African Development Bank, we have a facility we've rolled out. It's a $1 billion facility to support small and medium-sized enterprises. We have so many of our partners that are here that we do lines of credit through to support small and medium-sized enterprises. The second one, I think, is in access to trade finance. Trade finance is going to play a big role. Today, if you look at that, the nature of trade in the continent, only 15 countries account for over 85% of all that in traditional trade that you're talking about. South Africa is at the top about 74%. The issue is, how do we expand that? Well, you can do that unless you have trade finance. And so at the African Development Bank, we have a $1 billion facility that we've rolled out, a trade finance facility to support that. And so far, it has supported transactions in about 11 transactions in about 44 countries and mobilized about $7 billion in terms of trade. But in South Africa, for example, we have the first two banks that we are working with about $600 million facility for them to also support trade in about 20 countries. So all I want to say is that access to finance, the small and medium-sized enterprises, trade finance is very, very, very critical. The last one I want to say on the political stability, why this is important for driving not only Africa to Africa trade, but also foreign direct investment that needs to come into this wider space. We did the Africa Investment Forum. And we have the DBSA here and several partners that are here that were with us on that. We did it in November last year in South Africa. And we were able to mobilize $38.7 billion in less than 72 hours. Now think about that. That's a different Africa that you're talking about. And that is about 133% of the aid the continent got in 2017 that we did in about less than 72 hours. And so that tells you that Africa is open for business. The opportunities are there. When people look at Africa, think of the population. Think of the middle class. Think of the huge opportunities to invest across borders, not just limited by the boundaries of borders. And look at the opportunities for you to be able to invest in a continent with a population that will be the same size of China and India by the last 2050. Rapid middle class, a continent that's driving with young people with lots of things to do. I guess the way I can only summarize it for the continent is what one of the Senators, Senator Coons in the United States said when they were launching their investment program for Africa, he said, think of the next China after China. We were thinking about that. And we think that next China after China is gonna be Africa. This is exactly what the continental free trade area is. Almost $3 trillion of combined GDP. That's the market to focus on. And I think that if we can deal with those issues of access to finance, promote trade finance, and also invest in infrastructure. I can comment on that later on. I think we'll be able to help Africa to double a lot of the intra-regional trade that is doing right now, which is still very low. Very clear. Thank you so much. I guess Bernard is part of these trillions that you just described. So let me just, Bernard, go straight to you. The continental free trade agreement is promising to lower obstacles to cross border trade. What is the reason why a company like yours, Bendel, is investing Europe pretty present in Africa? What is driving you to invest in Africa? And what do you expect from this agreement to scale up your operations in the continent? First, I need to just explain in a couple of words who we are. We are an investment company that we are investing our own balance sheet. We are not investing all those money. Neither governmental nor others money. We're investing our own money. And we do it because we have a balance sheet. We do it with a long-term perspective and a very long-term perspective because we are controlled by a family, a French family, which has created this company 315 years ago. So we take our time. And that's why even if this agreement is just a first step on a long road, a long journey, we are very happy it just happened. We are the largest shareholder and controlling shareholder of Bureau Veritas. It's a certification company active in 160 countries around the world. They started in Africa in 1870 in Senegal. Now they are serving 10,000 clients, making half a billion in revenue. I've grown 3,000 engineers and doing business in more than 26 countries. So it takes time. I must admit that it has taken a lot of time, this one, but we have a very long-term perspective. So to this extent, what are we looking in, with this context in mind, what are we looking for in Africa? We are looking for local growth, organic growth. We are not so much interested by the big international intercontinental trades. We are not investing into mining business. We are not investing into this kind of risk, natural resources-based businesses, which actually, as the President said, is moving key resources outside of Africa, get it transformed outside, value is created outside, and then sometimes it's coming back. We are not in this type of investment. We are investing into local growth. So we have started to invest directly as a company in Africa seven years ago. And in the last five years, we have invested more than a billion in four companies. So it's targeted investment. And these four companies are service companies. We have invested only in service companies. We have very long-term, but we also have to do with the local status of the economy. And service is very much developed in Africa today and creates a lot of jobs. So just to give you a few examples and numbers, we've started to invest five years ago in IHS, telecom, the largest telecom tower business in Africa. IHS has created, roughly estimate, rough estimate, 80,000 jobs over the last five years, directly or indirectly. We are the controlling investor in South Africa of Tsebo. It's a catering business. They have created 40,000 jobs over the last 10 years and train low-wage people, get access to skills. So we have also invested in a Moroccan net-quartered insurance business operating in 26 countries in Africa. We've just interestingly sold it to Sanlam, the South African insurance company. But these guys have also created 10,000 jobs over the last 10 years by just working in Africa for African consumers, for African end customers. So we believe in African companies for African markets and African consumers. So moving the borders, facilitating the trade within Africa is very important for us. It will help, I believe, to replicate some of the most successful models in which, for instance, we've invested into many other countries, spread out the best practices, create jobs all over the place. Again, more in the service domain first. Maybe, hopefully, I do believe in it one day in the manufacturing and transformation industries. But first and foremost in the service business. I do believe in the development across Africa in anything which starts with the E, E business. There's a buoyant entrepreneurial use in Africa creating a lot of, I think a lot of ideas. I'm sure we'll hear about this in a few minutes. And this can cross borders much more easily than goods. But if we could immediately remove all the difficulties for circulation of people, I will be very happy. We talked about goods. Today it costs less money to bring a car from Paris to Lagos than from Accra to Lagos. Today we have people in our staff in our headquarters in Morocco. It's much longer for them to get visa. We have Congolese and Cameroonese guy. Cameroonese guy has never been authorized to go to Kenya. And the Congolese one has had to wait for weeks before he got a visa while our team in Paris was rapidly welcome. That's not the way it should go. These are real life examples. So when you said earlier that borders will be easier to cross for Africans going into Africa, I think it starts with this. Business people need to travel to create value to replicate successful business models. Workers need to travel. With all due respect for China, which is a great country, Africa does not need Chinese workers. They need more African workers traveling within Africa. So that's why we are investing in Africa. And we believe this new agreement is, again, only maybe one step. But it's heading definitely in the right direction. First, remove barriers for circulation of people. And at some point of time, President just touched a very important topic for us investors. Also, facilitating money to circulate. Money to circulate and money to be found locally. We need more depths of financing markets to provide financing to all kinds of companies. And to this extent, if I need to be a little bit provocative, I would preach in favor of much less currencies and much stronger currencies in Africa. Maybe Euro, which has been created in Europe, is not the best example. But I think there are some good reasons why it has been created. And I would strongly advocate for much stronger and fewer currencies in Africa. Thank you, Bernard. Let me just, this is an interesting segue to Winnie. Winnie, Oxfam has just put out yesterday a report in which it looks at the glaring and increasing inequalities in our world between the one and the 19, what we call the one and the 99%. How can Africa do it differently? And what opportunities or challenges does this continental free trade agreement generate? Thank you. The continental free trade agreement is really an exciting moment for Africa. It demonstrates the ambition of our leaders to achieve the sustainable development goals, the 2063 agenda. It's hopeful. But then we have to learn from other trade blocs, from globalization up to now. And we cannot make the mistakes of the past. So we need to learn from the trade that has happened within the context of globalization. We've had a situation where we have no proper rules, no referees, and bullies take charge and take the spoils. We have richer countries, richer companies, richer people gaining from trade liberalization and many others left behind. That's not what we want from our bloc. So we must define success. What does success look like for us in our bloc? And I think the most important measure of that success is the good quality jobs that will be produced for our young people and for women. So we need our governments to write the rules to ensure this. We need rules to have secure jobs that are coming out of currently what we now have, a very informalized economy, a formalizing economy that creates good jobs. Too many of our countries don't even yet have a minimum wage. Workers have no voice, no rights. This is not the basis for a new global bloc that is going to deliver for our people. The worst jobs are in the informal sector. It is women working mainly in that informal sector. We need to transform this. And to do that, it's not just an accident. It has to be planned. Second, and I'm happy that President Adesin of the Bank mentioned this many times, it's our small and medium enterprises. They struggle. They struggle competing with big corporations. Our governments prefer to work with big corporations. They leave our small and medium enterprises to struggle on our own. This must change. We need that trade liberalization takes a pace that gives our small and medium enterprises the opportunity to grow, to protect jobs and create opportunity for the majority of people. Finally, we need to prevent our trade bloc from the risk of allowing the rich countries to undercut our industrial development. We have to develop industrially. We cannot leapfrog to nowhere. We also need to develop industries. So we must be able to use tariffs and other measures to build strategic industries for Africa, industries of the future. And our governments must show that they can cooperate to build these. They need that cooperation. So I see a lot of hope, but we must build a trade bloc that engages globally, but that is protecting good, decent jobs for our people, and especially for the women of Africa and the young people of Africa. Thank you, Winnie. This is what we in the International Trade Center call making trade work for the 99%. Understanding that 99% of our economies anywhere, everywhere is small and medium enterprises. They are the ones that we have to be focusing on. I'm really glad that this is coming as a threat in this discussion. Rob, the economy of the 21st century is much more and more digitally powered economy. And you are in that space. You are empty-end. What opportunities does this agreement create from your point of view to help Africa thrive in this economy in the 21st century? I think my perspective shaped by my experience in the sector the last 10 years or so. Before I came back to join MTN, I was responsible for the European operations of Vodafone. Those nine countries obviously were all EU member states. And in managing that portfolio, it was so much easier than I now experience in the African context. We had a lot of harmonization of legislation, spectrum policy, licensing, regulation. It was very easy to move people between the markets for pollination of ideas, for skills transfer, and also very easy to move goods and services. In our industry, if you deploy, say, a 4G technology in a particular area where there's a lot of 4G devices, it was very easy then to reuse 3G technology in other markets that were at a different stage of the life cycle. So if I look now at our experience in Africa, we're in 17 markets in Sub-Saharan Africa and four in the Middle East. All of these things I mentioned are much more complex. The African markets are much more fragmented from a policy perspective. It is difficult to move people around, as my colleague from Wendell was saying, and to move equipment is really complex. In the old life, if the space gray iPhone wasn't selling in one market, you very quickly just deployed it into another. And in our markets now, that's not really possible. So we are very enthusiastic about a much more harmonized digital market for Africa. And that would create a lot of efficiencies in our industry. I think the Continental Free Trade Agreement is a very important first step, but there's much more work to be done. And the more efficiency there is in the sector, the easier it is to deploy services, those efficiencies can be passed on to customers, particularly also in the world of the data and the digital services, you really do need a harmonization. This is a world now where all of our personal data, if I ask you where are your Google photos, where is your iCloud, where have you stored your Dropbox? Most people don't know where it is because it's in the cloud. So we need also a harmonization there. And I think one of the concerns is we see sometimes a trend of a sort of a data nationalism where each market wants to have all their stuff in their own market. That's really very much not, I think really the way the world is evolving. So that would be hugely helpful. I think the final comment is that for the business sector, our revenues now as MTN come around 12% from the business market. We see that as a major growth area. About two thirds of that are SME. So actually the real heart of the business market is not the big multinationals. It is the small and medium sized enterprises and they would be very much stimulated and assisted by a much easier movement of goods and services between the markets. And that's also gonna be a big part of our success in the future. So we're very encouraged by these first steps but as I said, I think there's a lot more to be done. So work in progress. Can I comment on? Sure, of course, of course. I think the digital market, as you rightly said, is a big one, both for financial inclusion but also in terms of the service industry. A lot of service industry outsourcing is happening. And Africa with its young population, I think as you were saying, there's a lot of young people that can actually participate a lot in that outsourced service industry. But without having a very, very efficient IT infrastructure, you really cannot do that. And that's why for us at the African Development Bank, we are investing heavily in IT infrastructure to help. For example, you take Central Africa. It's very difficult in Central Africa to communicate. And so we invested over 300 million euros in Central Africa backbone, which is 2500 kilometers of fiber optics that we do over that, which in fact is gonna help to reduce the, I mean, increase internalized access from 6% to 20%. Now you go to some of the TransFahara fiber optic network, which is you're linking Algeria to Chad, to Niger and to Nigeria, right? Where also it's very, very difficult. So we've invested heavily in that particular infrastructure as well, as well as the East Africa marine fiber optic system. Now that's what they need to be able to access speed of voice data, things that make it quite competitive in the world today. But a point I wanna make finally on that is the important of really supporting the young people to take advantage of these platforms that we have. So for example, you were talking about the case of data. If you go and Google or save your information, Africa today does not have data centers. We do not control that. And so you hit it, it goes to California somewhere else. We are not in charge of that. And so it's not the, what do you call it? The cloud is not a cloud. It's not, it's sitting somewhere else. Somebody is making money from it. And so for us at Africa and Development Bank, we prioritize the need to invest heavily in data centers, even as we invest in digital entrepreneurship, which is gonna be the key for Africa going forward. Wow, this is- If I could jump in there as well. Yes. Sorry. We need to hear from Emmanuel. Don't forget, don't forget. Okay, of course. Say something about waiting for Emmanuel. So before we have the young leader, we have the middle-aged executives. Happens all the time. The business case for a large African data center would be immensely enhanced if it could be providing data services to multiple countries. And that's where again, we come up against the data nationalism and the lack of the harmonized legislation. Because we have all of the capacity to do it for sure. And hopefully the free trade agreement will start to move us in that direction. But at least it's much easier to move data rather than goods. Let me give the opportunity to Emmanuel, because when I talk to African leaders, they tell me they've built this Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement for guys like you. So we want to hear from you. What do you expect from this agreement? But also what do you want these leaders to do now that they have signed onto it? Thank you very much and thank you for the opportunity. And I think as we're grappling with the architecture of globalization four points, oh, the biggest question is, how do we enable young people to be economic agents in a single African market? And becoming an economic agent, one, empowering us to have our own agency and a conducive environment to play within that environment. So I'll tackle that in maybe two or three spaces, education, access to finance, and then an architecture that we've kind of spoken about that opens up borders for young people to play in. One of the things we're excited about the single trade market is obviously when we speak about internet and digitization, it allows us to have a customer base to allow the economies of scale. That's right. The problem is it's a wicked problem. You need multiple interventions because us as entrepreneurs on the continent, once we're online, we're not just competing with each other on the continent. We're competing with our counterparts in Europe and America and China who already have a consolidated framework or conducive environment to play in. So finance, interlopability, for example. And I play in Ghana and in South Africa and it's a very different financial structure in both countries. And so when we have an e-commerce site, for example, and trying to find out how do you make it or how do you prevent as the most barriers for a customer to give your money for an innovation that you've committed your life or years to, that structure's not conducive, then the single trade market is really not effective in that space. Sorry, finish. Oh, sorry. I want you to finish. I promise you'll be the next one when you, no problem. In that same space, education. And for a lot of us, for you to become the most effective economic agent, you need to be globally competitive in a world where we assume that, and I guess my age demographic is millennials, but my younger siblings are just as competitive. Young 20-year-olds who, it seems as if a lot of my parents think we know everything because we're a younger generation, but the information gap is happening so quickly. So we need to be empowered economically so we can also learn from different countries and participate in that type of economy. And so when the single trade market is opened up, it should be opened up concurrently with a single knowledge database that lets us learn about ourselves. So a good example is Ghana and Nigeria, we have seemingly similar cultures in music and we see strong collaborations in arts and culture, and we celebrate that. But we miss out on the rest of West Africa because we don't have that access. And so what we think, or what a lot of global leaders say is something that we should be in, we should celebrate arts, we're selling fashion, we're globally, we're not enabled because the single trade doesn't open up opportunities for us to learn and compete just as quickly. And I think the last point I'd say and relinquish on that is in spite of these, there are lots of young Africans that are trying to break through government bureaucracy, breaking through private competition, and it is a competition and we appreciate what MTN does, but an example is, for example, text messaging and text, so value add services along text messaging. And I've had friends who started those type of bundled up text products, but once the telcos come in and because they're the vehicles and they determine the terms, that innovation that initially started that was fair playing grounds for young people vanishes and it doesn't come back. But what I'm saying about how young people have gone through governments and private sector is co-working spaces and innovation hubs. So what we've tried to do is in the absence of government funding and opportunities for work that yes, it's impressive in tens of thousands over a couple of years, but there are millions of us. We've tried to congregate our limited resources in co-working spaces and tried to say that we can start up businesses. But that's also a challenge because we need mentorship and we need the resources to scale those businesses up that take advantage so that my business, whether it's in Lome or whether it's in Equatorial Guinea, can be competitive and scale up to somewhere else in Pumalanga or to Kigali as well. Thank you very much. Winnie, you wanted to come. Yes, I wanted to come in and I want our discussion to be back on the issue of what is the success we are looking for. Recently, I live in Nairobi. I moved Oxfam to Nairobi, proud of that. In Nairobi, on a hot day, I took a taxi and it was just a kilometer. I'll not mention which taxi I took, but we have like three big network companies and a few other small ones. I arrived, I expected to pay the minimum charge and the bill came. I was asked to pay 170 Kenya shillings. That's less than $2. Now, this company, the taxi driver told me that 20% of the profit on that less than $2 goes to the global company. And then, any other profit left, he shares with the owner of the taxi because he's just a taxi driver. I asked him where he lives. He lives like 30 kilometers from the city. That's where he can afford. I asked him how much he pays for rent. He says he pays for one room with three other taxi drivers and they sleep in turns because if a couple of hours each because none can afford a room, that is the job that the company offers. So too many jobs that are coming to us are jobs without security. They're digital jobs, but they are jobs with no security, with no life, no meaningful life for our people. So we're not going to build a continent of free trade area with a lot of infrastructure, connecting our markets, moving people around, but giving people jobs that are poverty jobs. So we need our countries to set standards to be clear about what we are looking for for our people and to deliver on that. I'm afraid we don't have such standards. I just came from Spain, I'm Spanish, and I was home last week. The taxi drivers in Spain would have exactly the same plea. And they are in Spain, they are not in Africa, but it doesn't matter. The problem is the same, is whether or not we have the right standards in making sure that the digital economy is also working for the people and working for decent jobs. Because a few years ago, the minimum charge of a taxi driver in Nairobi was about $5. That's the minimum charge you paid for a normal taxi if you walked out of your hotel. But now, who travels for less than $2 in a taxi? I mean, people have been pressed to the bottom and we call these jobs. It's not jobs, this is just poverty and some kind of slavery to global companies. So I just wanted to comment on what your point on these free trade areas have been done for young people and just the global leader that what you were saying there. I think basically we cannot achieve that unless we have a financing facility that works for young people. Young folks, I mean, what actually led to creating somebody like a Zuckerberg or Bill Gates and stuff like that? You got young people, they have a lot of great ideas. They wanna take on the world and we want them to take on the world. But we don't put capital at risk for young people. How do we want them to get the financing that they need to turn their bright ideas into big businesses? And so I decided at the African Development Bank that we're gonna do that. We're gonna put our capital at risk for young people, for their ideas, because most of them don't wanna walk for somebody else. They wanna have their own businesses. They wanna be entrepreneurs. I mean, if you've got too little value here, it's doing a fantastic job. We're gonna be working with them on that. That particular issue at our site where he's here who sits on my presidential advisory committee to advise me as president about not just doing things for young people. What do they want? My vice president is here, Jennifer Blankets, in the audience. And so we decided that first and foremost is how do we de-risk the financial markets to lend to businesses and ideas of young people? Right, so some of them will fail. But if two, three of them work, just imagine what Africa will become. And so supporting entrepreneurship, I think it's going to be very, very vital to how we do this. We have a facility with the European Investment Bank that's called Boost Africa, which is 200 million euro facility to support early-stage businesses, high-risk businesses for entrepreneurs. And I think that's important. The other thing is what you were saying about women. And I couldn't agree more with you on this. In 1992, I took a flight from Lagos to Abidjan. I, you know, in those days you remember there was these compact computers we used to have, which is the ones that look like a suitcase that, like this, you pick it up. And that's all I had. And I got on the flight and all these market women, they call them in West Africa, they were all on the plane. And they were all the same sizes. They were like this. And they were managing to go through the islands, something like that. But what they had done was that they had wrapped a lot of bills of clothing around themselves to avoid those that take bribe to overtax them because they're informal things and stuff like that. So all of a sudden, the tapes started going off. And you find that they're actually the same size. Now, I wanted, we're putting their stuff on the overhead compartment. So I needed to put my old compact computer there. There was no space. The hostess walked up to me and said, can I help you? I said, yes, I just need to put this up there. She said, how many times do you fly this plane? I said, it depends on where my job takes me. She said, you see these market women here? They fly it every single day. So we're gonna take your computer, or that, your bag and put it down in the hold, make more room for the women. What that means is that we cannot have a credible, inclusive continental free trade area. When we cannot, we have to transform the informality to deformality. We have to empower the women who form the major force. African economies today, I tell you, when we had the problems with the financial crisis with the layoffs and structural adjustment, they held up the economies. They held up households. So we have to make sure that we actually support women. That's why for us, at the African Development Bank, we're working very hard on an initiative that is called the Affirmative Finance Action for Women in Africa, which is to leverage $3 billion for businesses of women in Africa. You see, the day Africa gets the issue of women right in terms of entrepreneurship, in terms of business ideas, Africa will fly, I think, with two wings, not one that we are flying with right now. I think this is gonna be very important in this issue of trade. And the last point I want to make on this is we have Oiyama here, all the guys in the capital markets. All this is gonna require a lot of money. We have to integrate the financial markets all across African countries. We have you in charge of the African Securities Exchange Association and integrating that financial market. There are only six maybe countries that control about one trillion of the assets, Nigeria, South Africa. There's Abidjan, there is Morocco and then Kenya and one of those. Now, if we have very deep capital markets, we can mobilize capital to support infrastructure investments all across the continent. So we have to build very, very strong capital markets if we are going to be able to drive the kind of things that we're seeing. And I say all this because we don't want the African continent to be a market for others, of course, rules of origin and things like that will play a role. It has to be a market where African companies can play. They have access to the skills, the technology, the infrastructure, but also the finance for them to be able to play. I was in Dhaka just a few days ago with President Mahathir of Malaysia on the Imagine Markets Conference and we're talking about the Asian experience in Africa and how we imagine markets. I was saying that the key is if you look in Asia, they have mega companies. Then they have small and medium sized companies. They connect both of those things. In Africa, if this trade open trade is going to really impact us, we need some big mega conglomerates and make sure they have access to finance, but we also make sure we're funding up and down. We have to connect the small to the big so that as the big one go up, Africa has a lot of businesses that are coming up that can actually create a lot of jobs. So we have to be deliberate is what I'm saying. We cannot leave the African connector free trade area to be some kind of a loose thing. We must be deliberate on technology. We must be deliberate on infrastructure. We must be deliberate on how we help women and young people with financing structures and capacities to take advantage of this big thing to lift themselves out of poverty and to wealth. Excellent. Now, let's take a few questions. Gentleman over here and the lady over there. Thanks. I think a lot of things that have been said actually make sense. Sorry, he says I must introduce myself. I'm Peter Moyam, the CEO of Old Mutual. We operate in 13 countries on the continent. It's actually fascinating that in this discussion we don't have the political leaders because if we don't sort out some of the political issues, all the things that we're talking about here are going nowhere. How we make sure that all the countries start rising almost at the same level, because if they are not, the movement of people is only going to be in one direction. I mean, people will actually follow the most developed way there is real economic growth and what are the political leaders saying? Rob talked about the policy certainty. We actually need, underpinning this, that certainty. We actually talk about the ease of the movement of data. But I mean, if you actually look at the regulations, if you look at the mobile termination rates, just simple things like that, if we don't sort those things out, it actually becomes difficult. So it actually requires governments to actually give up some of that sovereignty when it actually comes to even the management of data and the movement of data and the movement. And how many times when we go to different countries, do we have to carry a lot of other sim cards? I mean, that's actually the story, the story of our life and lives. And lastly, the movement of people. For as long as it is not easy to just move people, the free trade area is not a reality. I mean, we actually sit today with very young people in East Africa that are very, very clever, where it's actually much, much cheaper for us to give solutions to Africans on the continent by operating from Kenya. But try and move those young people from Kenya to Zimbabwe, to South Africa, it's a mission. So we actually have to really be serious about the fundamental rules. I mean, all those things, I don't think they can really function. I mean, we can actually lend to anybody. I mean, when operating in the 13 countries, but until we sort out some of those fundamental issues, it's actually not easy. And that's why I think it's important that the politicians actually talk about some of these things. Well, there are a few politicians in the room who are taking notes. Let's get to this lady over here. We'll take a few and then we'll let the panelist take some answers. Thanks very much. My name is Rapa Lang and I've been an entrepreneur in the technology space for the last 14 years or so. I just wanted to throw a sort of a different lens on what it really means for entrepreneurs to really benefit, I think, from a single market in Africa. I think Ampeter's president, Adesina, did talk a lot about the funding and facilities that we made available. But I think there's a much bigger issue than funding per se, but the ability to acquire customers. And my view is that the cost of customer acquisition remains prohibitively high and I'm not sure to what extent the free trade sort of agreements really address it. And what do I mean by sort of the cost of customer acquisition? I really mean, is there a place for entrepreneurs to be able to find, engage and communicate with potential customers? Is it easy to be able to collect money from potential customers? Is it easy to be able to deliver goods and services to potential customers? And I think there is some discussion around the movement of goods in the free trade sort of agreement, but I'm not so sure how we're covering sort of the initial two points and particularly cross-border payments. I mean, if we're not really solving that, we can't begin to collect money and these are remain very high level ideas in terms of a single market. And in terms of the first one, how do we really connect and communicate with potential customers? Most digital sort of businesses are really still relying on sort of social media and Facebook, which isn't a deep enough penetration we're not getting further in. And perhaps there's a lot more room for collaboration between sort of startups and corporations because I do think that our large organizations who have a large customer base have in some way organized the market and helped cover some of the fragmentation. And to the extent that they can provide sort of platforms or digital ecosystems and charge a fair toll to access these sort of markets would be critical for startups to actually be able to hit scale. And I'm not sure how much of that conversation is really happening. And to the extent that we don't solve the cost of customer acquisition, we keep saying we need more funding when in fact the real problem is that it's too costly to acquire customers. Not good. Thank you. Anybody else? Lady. Thank you. My name is Bridget Mozepeh Hadebe and I'm the president of the South African Mining Development Association which is one of two mining chambers in South Africa and also the chairperson of Black Business Council. On my left is the president of Business Unity South Africa. We are literally representing all the South African business and we're very happy to hear all the mentioning that's made out of South African business achievements. However, what I picked up in this presentation and as you know, we also intake lots in parliament giving presentations and portfolio committees in terms of legislative changes that can enhance business opportunities is initially, I know when you were the head of the African Development Bank we tried to, you are now, but previously when you were voted nominated I was, we were busy during that time on the illicit outflow of capital which is a very unique and very important thing. If the taxation cannot be accrued and collected by countries, then you have a problem. As you know, our chamber was the first one to go to parliament to say we will not under our watch and while we are doing business continue to do this illicit outflow of capital the transfer pricing eliminates all potential for government to be able to produce the road infrastructure, the electricity and all the necessary essential services that people need to make business available and business productive. And then also, you know, the Judge Dennis Davis commission was then initiated created by parliament, the Department of Finance who look into it, the African Development Bank now has president, former president Becky who's looking into it and you know all about it because you're also part of that initiative. If we can correct that then at least it will help also from a government point of view but also another legislation that we are also looking into is this about the inability because you made a very important comment both Mr. Adesina and Mr. Gutier about the inability of the manufacturing of the end product in Africa. We are a producer of minerals, okay. Our, he also is the head of Anglo president, chairperson of the Anglo Gold Ashanti which is one of the big gold companies in Africa. You know, so you find that what we inherited from the old South Africa from Mandela's time we had to change the law and the law is the mineral and petroleum resources development act. So you find that we inherited countries that would, companies that would export a lot of the minerals. And yet Africa is the number one in lots of minerals but we do not have a beneficiation. We do not have industrialization. We don't have factories. So in the law we had a section 26 of the mining law and I'll just read two of the clauses of section 26. It says the law says that every mineral there's gonna be mined outside South Africa whoever's gonna take that mineral to create the end product must then apply to the minister of finance, the minister, I mean the minister of mines, the minister of mines in consultation with the minister of trade and industry because that's where the beneficiation and factories come will then then go back to the country that company and say why then why not here? But the integrated approach in terms of how we're gonna do it. Why is it that we are the only ones doing the assembling on the manufacturing of cars in South Africa and the the tires cannot be done, the DRC and the seeds cannot because of the rubber and the seeds cannot be done in Ethiopia because there's a lot of seed covering and all the other so the integrated approach in terms of looking at how Africa can do better. Now on lastly is the law in terms of how we can make it easier for you especially you said something that had to do that when you wanted to go and create a database you find that the straight laws and stuff like that talk to us our chamber and let us see how we can engage our ministries and when we go in the state visits how we can then make these laws more better for trade to happen. Thank you. We have half a minute for each one of you because the clock is ticking. So let me start with Emmanuel have a minute each one of you and then we'll wrap up. Thank you so much. I might speak a little faster. There were a couple of things and the biggest point I wanted to make was the Davos's topic sounded really exciting as a young person but listening to a lot of what we've heard today a lot of the implementation sound like yesterday because young people were not architects in one government representation were not architects in two negotiating with private sector. So some of the things you're talking about on data and whether we need a date for us it sounds like yesterday's news financing. We need trust in order to build trust we need to be given expertise. We don't need a one time financing. We need a relationship where young people are continuously part of financing structures that fits today and tomorrow's market that we haven't envisioned legacy businesses our parents we are entrepreneurial by nature we're products of parents who have been hardworking and this new world requires us to compete and be able to bring legacy businesses that are on the continent that have survived into a global infrastructure and framework and we're willing to do that if we're giving access and for a lot of what we're saying for these products to be innovative and be architectural in the globalization we need to have more dominant influence and space and labs to test out some of these ideas. So instead of taxation how do we look at state's capture for innovation because we're an innovative continent and those are the kind of inputs that if young people are given an opportunity we can knock some of those doors and make Africa truly globally competitive. Winnie. Well, back to my theme that the continent of free trade area is exciting, it's an opportunity but we mustn't assume that volumes of trade figures of growth will turn into real good lives for our people. We must remember that Africa's economy is largely run as an informal economy where women are dominant. These are not people who die away they are the people to shift into new, better jobs. So we need some standards we need a human rights framework these must underpin the growth of our common market. Thank you, Bernard. Yeah, and just to ribbon on what Winnie said that we do believe as a long-term investor in the fact that sustainable growth can just come only if it's creating wealth for everybody and help the whole society to make progress then my favorite topic is we've talked about difficulty to move goods I think that if we had to do what the China has done 30 or 40 years ago to become a world champion they had become the factory of the world and invested tons and billions of tons in concrete and steel. I think that instead of having low-wage people in manufacturing sites and investing in concrete and steel Africa can be a new winning continent if it relies upon the smartness of these young people and not the low cost. So smartness and invest not in concrete and steel but in fiber and data center. And of course digital has some extreme situation the example you mentioned is just lacking regulation but globally it will be much, much easier for Africa to go fast and grow with digital solutions. Akimoni. Yeah you know just on the we have to open up Africa bring all the walls down there's no reason not to have fast labor mobility all across the continent. You know we look at the bank we look at you need visas to enter as an African 51% of the country's white. Currently now you only have about 20, 25% that you don't need visas for 21% of the countries and 25% or 24% that you can actually get it on arrival. If Africa's richest man, Adiko Dan, go there you told me. He never goes to a place, it won't let him in. How will you have a good connoisseur free trade area without free mobility of people? So my point is open up the African passport that was developed by the African you don't got to get into the hands of everybody else so that we can actually move people. The last thing I want to say just to close is that Africa cannot prosper by continuing to do raw materials. We knew that before. But the secret of the wealth of nations is very clear. Those nations who trade in raw materials are the ones that are poor. Those that actually trade in value added products are the ones that I reach. Today 45% of all the intra-original trade in Africa is still the same as raw materials. And so we got to really, I agree with Mr. Motsopi we have to industrialize. We have to add value. What's the brain surgery making chocolates? You know, there's none, right? We've got to make sure that we have industrial centers that can allow us to take minerals, all metals, gas that we have and actually produce high value products. That's why we're going to grow our wealth. So my point really basically is Africa needs the technology. It needs the enabling policy environment. But Africa must really unlock what it has and turn it into wealth. We can't be all trading the same thing. We have to move into highly high value added products. Thank you. Unless but not least, Rob. 60 seconds. A few things. Integrated financial system is absolutely imperative. Both at a corporate level, but also at an individual level. We need new solutions. I think mobile money, fintech, is going to be a big part of the solution. The questions the lady was asking about access to customers, ability to pay, cross-border remittances. I believe that mobile technology will solve many of these problems. There are some missing pieces of infrastructure, important pieces. MTN and Orange announced a joint venture to build a mobile money interoperability hub in Abidjan called Mawali. It's using a blockchain distributed ledger. We have the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation providing support and funding. This will make, I think, a massive difference. And I think finally, if you look at the sophisticated mobile money systems that have been built in Africa, whether it's in PESA, in Kenya, the MTN systems and Orange systems, it shows that Africa can provide solutions for the problems of Africa. We just need will and determination and we all need to do what we can do instead of always looking for what somebody else must do. Wow. I was meant to do a wrap up. As you can imagine, we have no time and the wealth of this conversation was such that it would be unfair to try to do that. I'm convinced nevertheless that if Africa gets its integration process right, it will be good for Africa, but it would be an even better news for the rest of the world. This is why we all have a stake in making it work. Tear down the barriers except for illicit financial flows. For that one, we don't want to tear down the barriers and regulate smartly so that the 99% can also benefit from this integration. Thank you very much. A big applause to our speakers. And enjoy the rest of the forum. Thank you.