Economic forum north africa - IHK Berlin

On the 6th of February the economic business forum took place at Berlin.

The forum had been organised by the Euro-Mediterranean-Arab Association. The objective of this confer-ence was to point out the chances and challenges for the start or the continuing development of trade relations for small and mid-sized German enterprises (KMU) with countries from the region of North Africa. The region is from the economic point of view actually not in the same focus as other regions of the world. During this event it was especially pointed out, what the small and mid-sized German enterprises can do in cooperation with these countries to change this impression and create a „Win-Win-Situation“ for both sides. From Ambassadors and Ministers from Egypt, Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia, representatives from the German ministries BMF and BMZ and other representatives of Africa the following topic blocks had been presented and discussed:

• "Region of the future North Africa – opportunities and cooperation in times of the G20 Compact with Africa“
• General economic conditions and economic structure in the countries of North Africa
• Economic cooperation and industrial cooperation as mission statement
• Future trends – digitalisation as growing economic sector
• Agriculture business – an economic sector with chances for the rural area develop-ment and the food security in the region

On the second day the business delegation visited small and mid-sized German enterprises at Brandenburg. The visits had been organised and accompanied by the Wirtschaftsförderung Brandenburg GmbH (WFBB) and the EMA. Apprich Secur had been one of the selected enterprises and had the honour to welcome the business delegation at their production facility in Ludwigsfelde. In the context of the production visit and the Q & A session afterwards, we had the chance to present from KMU point of view our comments to the topics that had been presented the day before at the conference. We have gained a lot of new interesting insights and will follow-up the resulted contacts to deepen the understanding within the next months.

Once again our special thanks to EMA and the WFFB for the organisation.