AIW 2019: Pan African Manufacturers Association holds inaugural meeting

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The Pan African Manufacturers Association (PAMA) on Monday held their inaugural meeting on the sidelines of the ongoing second annual Africa Industrialization Week (AIW 2019) themed: “Positioning African Industry to Supply the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Market,” holding in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

In a bid to provide a Pan-African platform for the actualization of Africa’s Industrialization aspirations, the African Union had on the sideline of the 2018 Intra-African Trade Fair (IATF2018) which took place in Cairo, Egypt in December, 2018, facilitated the inauguration of an interim committee for the establishment of the Pan-African Manufacturers Association.

It was pursuant to this that consultations began with relevant business membership organizations and manufacturing companies across Africa to facilitate the establishment of PAMA. The process of establishing PAMA has now reached its concluding stage; the association will be formally inaugurated November 20, 2019, in Addis Ababa, during the celebration of the 2019 African Industrialization Day (AID), as part of weeklong activities in commemoration of Africa’s industrialization week.

While addressing members of PAMA at the meeting, Mansur Ahmed, interim president of the Pan African Manufacturers Association (PAMA) cum president of Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), expressed the necessity for African private sector organizations, particularly those in manufacturing sector to interact and engage with one another so as to foster lasting trade relationships, in the context of the CFTA.

“Having signed the CFTA, our leaders have  created the platform for the transformation of Africa but a lot is left to be done by African private sector organizations. Those of us in the manufacturing and industrial sector have a tremendous responsibility; while the market has been created, what will be traded in the market needs to be produced at scale,” Ahmed told a gathering of PAMA members attending AIW 2019.

Amongst others, the objectives of the Association are namely, to provide a Pan-African platform for the actualization of an Africa’s industrialization aspiration; provide a Pan-African organization for the promotion of robust and competitive manufacturing industries in Africa; as well as serve as a central continental body that would engage the African Union Commission and other continental and regional institutions on behalf of African manufacturers on matters concerning the growth and development of their industry.