Economic Francophonie can be a powerful lever for post-Covid recovery, said head of the Moroccan Employers’ Body (CGEM), Chakib Alj.
The shock of the pandemic has highlighted the importance of subsets, whether regional or community-based, said the president of the CGEM who was speaking on Tuesday in Paris at a panel on the theme “The economic Francophonie: an added value for the private sector?”, organized as part of the first Meeting of Francophone Entrepreneurs, at the initiative of Medef, the French employers’ association.
According to Alj, the Francophone world must adopt “an offensive posture to return to growth and rethink its economic and trade partnerships, so that they are more inclusive, more open and more sustainable. He also said that “the Francophonie must become a lever of economic development for countries” forming this area.
“For the Francophonie to be more than a sharing of language but rather a real economic area, it must represent a competitive advantage and provide tangible added value for businesses,” said the president of the CGEM.
Indeed, stressed the head of the CGEM, the countries of the francophone area have countless assets that can benefit their economic partners. If some have abundant natural resources, others are known for their technological or scientific advances, and others are more advantaged by the quality of their skilled human resources.
To take advantage of these complementarities, he called on Francophone economic operators to set up “a Francophone platform for sharing business and investment opportunities, which could be consolidated by a Francophone financing mechanism”.
