A 2-day Intermodal Africa Conference and Exhibition aimed at addressing challenges on global transportation and logistics has ended at the capital city of Ivory Coast, Abidjan.
Addressing participants at the 18th Intermodal Africa 2017 and Exhibition, the Managing Director of Transport Events, Rory Doyle urged participating countries to take advantage of the foreign direct investment opportunities facilitated by the conference by creating networking prospects among Ports on the continent.
“Enjoy the opportunity of facilitating foreign direct investment opportunities. For the foreign participants here for the first time, to seek out the local partners, local investors do your very best to encourage trade and financial economic development between foreign and local countries,” he entreated.
A Chief Director at the Ministry of Transport in Ivory Coast, who represented the sector Minister Soro Benjamin called on Ports in West and Central Africa to put resources together so as to make them competitive globally.
“The objective of this event is to promote trade, to be able to encourage Africans. To prove to them that there are resources and to tell them to be more competitive at the world stage. This is the first purpose. The second one, is to try to see how Africans can be able to develop more relationship among themselves and others, exchange contacts, networking,” he explained.
The Intermodal Africa Conference and exhibition is one of the biggest annual Container Ports and Terminal Operations events in Africa and the 18th Edition was the first to be hosted in la Cote D’Ivoire by the Abidjan Port Authority.
Each of the about 30 world-class speakers featured at the conference took turns to explain the need to shape West Africa’s next generation port industry and getting the best return on investments while creating trade opportunities to position the ports as key enablers in West Africa’s economic growth.
Participants also had the opportunity to have a 1st hand experience on developments at Port of Abidjan.