East Africa's top business leaders to meet in Uganda

KAMPALA, July 16 (Chinese media) -- East Africa's top business executives and policy makers are to meet here on Friday to discuss ways of making the region more competitive in the global market.

Richard Ndungu, CEO of KPMG East Africa, the co-conveners of the two-day meeting, told reporters here on Wednesday that the region, as an economic block needs to focus on areas that uniquely make it competitive in the global market.

"Africa so far is a price taker, that when prices go up our standard of living goes down. When are we going to turn into price givers? When other people raise their prices to us, we raise our prices to them," he said.

Meeting under the auspices of the East African Business Summit, a forum of top business leaders, the experts will engage their public sector counterparts in addressing the challenges facing the region.

Ndungu said in the wake of emerging economic powers like China and India, East African countries need to partner with the private sector in order to remain relevant in the global market.

"The world has become a global village, nations are now competing with nations and not just companies with companies. We in Africa have to look for a way of remaining relevant on the world stage," he said.

The summit held under the theme, "Enhancing East Africa's Competitiveness," will be the fourth edition and marks its revival after a three-year break.

The over 150 business leaders will discuss topics including global and regional competitiveness, growing and managing talent, to achieve innovation through partnerships with learning institutions, and public governance and political structures.

Other topics to be discussed are public-private partnerships as an alternative to public infrastructure financing and the innovative use of technology to drive the region's competitiveness.

East African Community member states comprising Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi are seeking to establish one economic block that will cut costs of doing business and improve competitiveness.

Companies in the region still face problems like dilapidated infrastructure, high cost of telecommunication, gaps in public-private partnership and political uncertainty that make the cost of doing business high and puts them at a great disadvantage in the global marketplace.