Tony Elumelu to France: What we all want to see is Africa growing its own value adding industries; the days of commodity extraction are over!

One of Africa’s most influential businessmen, Tony O Elumelu has stated that it is time Africa focuses on exporting manufactured products with added value. While calling for stronger business relationships between Africa and France, he stated bluntly: “the days of commodity extraction are over”.

   

Elumelu who is Chairman of Heirs Holdings, the United Bank of Africa, UBA and Founder of the Tony Elumelu Foundation made the call in an address at the recent MEDEF Summer University Forum in Paris, and stressed on the need for mutual respect as both parties get ready to deepen trade relations.

He was speaking in his capacity as one of the select representatives from Africa at this year’s edition of France’s leading gatherings which brought together over 7,500 business and opinion leaders, including Heads of State, government officials, political and business leaders, academics and over 450 French and international journalists.

The leading advocate for the African private sector and champion of African entrepreneurship noted in his speech that Africa and France have longstanding relationship and emphasised the need for its continuity “in a manner that brings about positive change.”

He urged France to look beyond its traditional relationships with Francophone countries to embrace Anglophone and Lusophone Africa. “France has very strong links with Francophone Africa, and we would like to see you engage more commercially with the Anglophone countries; creating a new form of economic and commercial partnership between France and the whole of Africa,” he said.

Elumelu is known as the proponent of Africapitalism, the philosophy that Africa’s private sector can and should drive economic change on the continent. Fundamental to this is the role of entrepreneurship, which creates wealth and jobs on the scale needed in Africa. He pursued this theme, stating that the solutions to issues of social exclusion are enterprise and entrepreneurship. 

In this regard, he advised governments to support the private sector, pointing out that “What is good for the private sector is also good for society. The private sector is best placed to assist government achieve its mandate. If the private sector succeeds, it creates more jobs, enhances security, and improves living standards”.

As an advocate of Africa on the rise, he seized the opportunity to encourage businesses to invest on the continent, which he says, has so much to offer in returns. He highlighted the role Africans themselves can play by investing on the continent, and made a call on the French public and private sector to do the same, reassuring them there is nowhere else they can get as much returns on investment as in Africa.

“There is a reason MEDEF has a new economic interest in Africa. Africa is home to the largest and fastest growing consumer population globally. It is a huge opportunity for both international and domestic businesses – and African businesses are increasingly competing successfully. What we all want to see is Africa growing its own value adding industries; the days of commodity extraction are over.”

  

Elumelu encouraged the entrepreneurs present to reach for their dreams. “Entrepreneurs are able to bring their ideas to fruition through the support we give them. This is helping them not just to dream, but to turn their ideas into successful ventures – and create the foundation for broad based and meaningful change in Africa”.

On a personal level, Elumelu has an extraordinary track record of job creation, including creating the UBA Group, which now employs over 20,000 people in 19 African countries. And he is giving back, through the Tony Elumelu Foundation’s $100m commitment to support 10,000 entrepreneurs over a period of 10 years.

He contributed to the opening panel debate at the forum; ‘The World is Watching Us’.  Moderated by Frédéric Ferrer, journalist, consultant and professor at ESCP Europe, other participants were the President of MEDEF, Pierre Gattaz; Gary Coombe, President of Proctor & Gamble Europe; and Oudet Souvannavong, Executive Vice-President of the Lao National Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and President of Lao Hotel & Restaurant Association.

Pierre Gattaz for his part, said “Full employment should be on the agenda of any political programme that is worth any value or worth its name. This should take up 70% of any political agenda moving forward. We must encourage and trust those who bring enterprise and create jobs”.

Closing the event, the moderator, Frederic Ferrer, applied the tag line of the Tony Elumelu Foundation's entrepreneurship programme to France, "Your ideas can transform France too and not just Africa!".