Magnus Eze, Enugu
President of Afreximbank, Professor Benedict Oramah, will deliver the keynote address on the theme: “Financing South East economic development and improving the Ease of Doing Business in the South East”, on Friday at the 4th South East Economic Summit (SEES) holding in Enugu.
Organised by the South East Governors’ Forum (SEGF) and South East Region Economic Development Company (SEREDEC), the event will focus on financing economic development, improving the ease of doing business and financing overarching infrastructure projects in the region. A statement by SEREDEC scribe, Prof. Onyi Nwagbara, weekend, said the event which began in 2016 with support from DFID’s Partnership to Engage, Reform and Learn (PERL-ARC) has the major objective to create an enabling environment for dialogue and development of a practicable working plan to push the region forward.
He said that the first and second summits held in 2016 and 2017 respectively were targeted at identifying key overarching projects to deploy in the South East to aid rapid economic development. The 2018 edition was about the implementation of these projects; to examine the progress till date and establish a clear-cut timeline for completion.
According to Prof. Barth Nnaji, SEREDEC Chairman, “SEES 4 is designed to be a practical conference and not a talk shop”. The two-day summit will have development experts, business moguls, the academia, ICT professionals, Ease of Doing Business practitioners and other leaders. These assemblages of resources will do justice to various issues in the areas of financing projects in the South East; provide project updates on the resort hospital project, Enyimba Economic City, the rail network, gas pipeline. “We also hope deliberations at the summit will help to enhance our strategies for infrastructure, development and financing, ICT, human capital development and youth empowerment,” Nwagbara stated.