The United Kingdom has expressed its desire to develop its economic relations with African countries, and to become one day the continent’s main investor.
The UK hosted, on Wednesday, the Africa Investment Conference, marking the first major international investment event launched by the UK as an independent trading nation following its withdrawal from the European Union (EU), commonly known as Brexit.
“Many things has changed since last year summit, as Britain has left the EU, we have a fantastic new trade deal with the EU. Almost across the world, we’re battling our common enemy COVID-19, but there is one thing that I can tell you absolutely has not changed, that is my ambition for the UK to be Africa’s investor of choice,” UK’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson said during the event.
“Not only that, but I believe there is a renewed urgency to our common agenda, as we recover from this pandemic, to build back better, faster and greener, making our nation’s and economies more sustainable, and resilient,” he added.
“Today’s event focuses on how we can do that building on the legacy of that large investment summit. I’m delighted to hear that in the last 12 months, the online deal room platform launched last year summit has attracted over 600 million of new deals while the newly established Africa investors group moves from strength to strength,” Johnson continued.
The Africa Investment Conference brought together leaders of businesses from across the UK and Africa.
“Africa is the future in realising long term prosperity for all African nations. And as we continue on the journey, I hope we can seize more, the opportunities before us to drive both create jobs and build a better future for all our people,” Johnson concluded.
