RABAT (October 25, 2013) – On the opening day of The Atlantic Dialogues, Dr. Mostafa Terrab, chairman and CEO of OCP Group and president of the OCP Foundation, called for greater investment in Africa. Referring to the free trade agreement now being negotiated between the United States and the European Union, he said “TTIP is called transatlantic but is only northern transatlantic. It ignores the South.”
“New entrepreneurs are coming from Africa and tapping the market in smart ways,” he said, continuing to say that the continent suffers from “perception problems.”
Terrab was speaking at The Atlantic Dialogues, a high-level gathering of international public- and private-sector leaders from around the Atlantic Basin. The Atlantic Dialogues is a joint initiative of the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF), the OCP Foundation, and the OCP Policy Center in Morocco.
The conference’s first panel focused on shifting demographics in the Atlantic Basin as trade and consumption patterns develop and economies grow. Many of the speakers urged governments and societies to view immigrants and migration as a source of potential strength. Esther Silver-Parker, president and CEO of the Silver Parker Group and a former diversity official at Wal-mart, said “When we view immigration as a liability, we get one outcome; when we view immigration as an asset, we get another outcome.” She went on to say that “immigration is a way to innovate.”
During the same session, Dr. Luiz Awazu Pereira Da Silva, deputy-governor in charge of international affairs, risk management, and financial regulation at the Central Bank of Brazil, explained Brazil’s continued economic growth even during the recent global crisis, saying that the country had prepared for hard times. “It wasn’t as if the crisis took us by surprise,” he said, “Because in South America, we’ve seen this movie before.”
Mbarka Bouaïda, minister delegate at the Moroccan Ministry for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, opened The Atlantic Dialogues by stressing the emerging role of the Global South in international affairs. “Common challenges such as the economic crisis, food security, climate change, energy, and security and the high seas are becoming more urgent,” she said, “And we should seek to our counterparts across the ocean in an effort to resolve problems collectively.”
Atlantic Dialogues : a high level meeting
The Atlantic Dialogues is a high-level gathering of international public- and private-sector leaders from around the Atlantic Basin. The Atlantic Dialogues is organized by the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) in partnership with the OCP Foundation, and OCP Policy Center of Morocco. The Atlantic Dialogues brings together around 300 high-level public-and private-sector leaders from around the Atlantic Basin for three days of open, informal discussion on cross-regional issues ranging from security to economics, migration to energy. Participants from North and South America, Africa, Europe and Asia include senior officials, business leaders, opinion shapers, and the media.
