SPAIN: BUSINESS INVESTMENT IN AFRICA WILL STEM MIGRATION - NGO

(English IPS News Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)
MADRID, Sep. 21, 2006 (IPS/GIN) -- The world can promote
development in Africa by supporting the private sector in Africa,
as Spanish businesses agreed to do this week, and combating
people-trafficking mafias, according to a non-governmental aid
group.

"Supporting investment in Africa is important," Antonio Molina,
secretary general of Fundacin Sur, told IPS in interview Thursday.

That was the commitment made during the Spain-Africa Business
Cooperation meeting held Monday through Wednesday in Las Palmas,
Gran Canaria, a Spanish island located off the coast of northwest
Africa.

"The tide of emigrants from Africa must be stemmed, because it's
usually the best people with the highest level of education who
leave. They hope to find a better future in Europe, but many lose
their lives in the attempt, and others are condemned to social
exclusion," Molina said.

In the last few months, thousands of undocumented migrants from
Africa have reached the Canary Islands by sea.

In his opinion, the exodus can be stopped by encouraging young
Africans to set up businesses in their own countries, supporting
these enterprises, and at the same time combating the mafias that
organize and profit from trafficking in migrants. "As these are
investigated, it becomes clear that they involve people at the
highest levels of these societies," he said.

Two hundred members of the business community from Benin,
Burkina Faso, Equatorial Guinea, Gambia, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Mali,
Nigeria, Senegal, Spain and Togo attended the meeting in Las
Palmas.

Adn Martn, the head of the regional government of the Canary
Islands, urged business people not to look on Africa merely out of
solidarity, "but out of responsibility; because it was we of the
Old Continent who forced our neighbors into the situation in which
they are now living," referring to European colonialism.

The humanitarian crisis generated by the intermittent waves of
undocumented migrants, thousands of whom cross the seas in frail
boats, must be used to make European Union member countries
understand they must finance development projects in Africa, Martn
said.

Referring to the rise in Spanish investment in the last few
years, and the further commitments made at this meeting, the
president of Spain's High Council of the Chambers of Commerce,
Javier Gmez-Navarro, said that it "demonstrates the aim of Spanish
businesses to finally look Africa straight in the eye." He also
said that the present levels of investment and trade are "far too
low."

Gmez-Navarro mentioned infrastructure for transport, health and
education as promising sectors for investment, as well as tourism
and renewable energy sources, for which financing from
international organizations and the public and private sector in
Spain is available, he told the conference.

He also said that the Assembly of Chambers of Commerce of West
Africa, formally established at the meeting, was a significant
advance, and called it "an excellent vehicle for closer
institutional and business ties between that region and Spain."

The important thing now, he told IPS, "is to get large, medium
and small businesses together, with very flexible formulas, to
stimulate national and international cooperation and promote
environmentally and socially sustainable development."

One of the first tasks of the assembly, supported by the Las
Palmas Chamber of Commerce, will be to work toward a borderless
free trade zone, sharing information through a common network, and
using it to seek more foreign investment.

For his part, Martn said that "Africa cannot wait any longer.
Public institutions in the Canary Islands, Spain and Europe can
contribute decisively to turning the situation around, but we have
to do it together."

Another task assumed by the assembly is to spread knowledge
about real conditions in the African continent, and promote an
image of Africa as an attractive investment opportunity. It will
also train specialists to develop business cooperation projects,
and contribute to making African businesses more competitive.

Representatives of the World Bank and COFIDES -- a joint-stock
company of mixed capital that promotes investment by Spain in
developing countries -- announced that funds were available for
investment in Africa.

Paula Alayo, of the World Bank's International Finance Corp.
(IFC), announced that the IFC has $1.7 billion available, while
Teresa Madrigal of COFIDES announced that they would spend $900
million to finance Spanish companies' investments in development
projects in the South.

But Alfredo Bonet, secretary general for foreign trade at the
Spanish Ministry of Industry, criticized the barriers to trade with
Africa that Spain throws up, and said the numerous difficulties
that African business persons face to obtain a visa to visit this
country must be overcome.

He said that the three ministries involved in this issue, those
of Trade, Employment and the Interior, are working on that and he
hoped that results would be forthcoming soon.

The head of the Gran Canario parliament, Jos Manuel Soria, made
a similar statement. He said that the greatest constraints on trade
between Spain and Africa "are still the enormous administrative,
regulatory and bureaucratic obstacles that public institutions have
established on both sides of the ocean."

According to Soria, public institutions should not take on the
mission of managing factories or competing with private enterprise,
but should concentrate on eliminating the hurdles so that those who
want to do business can do so.

A report was presented at the meeting which indicated that
regional gross domestic product grown in Africa averaged 5 percent
last year, and is expected to reach 6 percent this year.

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