More than two decades on since the first Africa Down Under Conference, Paydirt Media Executive Chairman Bill Repard told a full house this morning in Perth that the meeting’s purpose remained the same, to discuss and promote opportunities across the African continent.
“Whether that is in exploration, development of mining opportunities, we continue to to work hard to demystify the notion that looking for investment opportunities and raising capital for projects in Africa is too hard,” Mr Repard said.
“As we hear from companies over the next few days who have built successful businesses in many different countries. The stories you will hear are not about tales of expectation, but rather proof of positive outcomes being delivered to stakeholders – whether they are national economies, employees, communities or investors.
“Not only do these partnerships generate returns, they have a multiplier effect in those communities, whereby skills are learned, local enterprise is encouraged and infrastructure is built.”
Since its inception in 2002, Africa Down Under has been about people and relationships, gathering mutual stakeholders together to do business and strengthen relationships.
At a time when there was a great deal of mistrust around the world, according to Mr Repard, Africa Down Under provided some great examples of trust between Australian companies and African governments and communities.
Providing the keynote address on behalf of the Australian Government, Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Hon Matt Thistlethwaite MP acknowledged the considerable presence in the room of delegations from 18 different African countries as well as strong bilateral diplomatic representation.
Mr Thistlethwaite said this event was a timely reminder of the deep ties that had existed between Australia and Africa for many centuries.
There are currently about 170 Australian companies working across African nations in a broad range of sectors, representing investments of more than $60 billion.
“These companies are helping to provide jobs, training, expertise and opportunities in local communities across Africa, while also growing the two-way trade and investment between our nations,” Mr Thistlethwaite said.
“It is encouraging, as I can see from this event, that we are increasing these links – because these links, our decisions and cooperation are going to be key to the future.
“Right now, Africa is poised for significant growth, it has a young population, its economies are dynamic and it is developing at a rate of knots.
“Its role in the world is already shifting, becoming an engine for the global economy and a key player in international peace and security.”
However, the Assistant Minister believed Africa’s most significant role would be that within the global energy transition.
He said Africa, like Australia, had an impressive endowment of critical minerals that would need to be responsibly developed to facilitate the supply chain required for meeting future manufacturing demand for solar panels, wind turbines and batteries.
“How we develop and extract those minerals is going to require us to work together as partners. It won’t be enough to dig up those minerals and send them somewhere else,” Mr Thistlethwaite said.
“It’s crucial our critical minerals reserves are developed in a way that delivers economic benefits for the home countries, that is environmentally conscious, that delivers prosperity and stability to the nations that own those reserves.
“Australia is well positioned on all these fronts. Our mining expertise, our leadership in sustainable mining, and our strong mining equipment, technology and services capability is widely acknowledged and makes us an obvious partner.”
