The meeting was opened by the Guest of Honour from the Government of Kenya. The Assistant Secretary General (Programmes) of COMESA also gave opening Remarks.
The meeting under the theme: «Enhancing partnerships for implementing the Third Industrial Development Decade for Africa» was attended by participants from the Ministries responsible for Industry of Member States that included DR Congo, Egypt, Kenya, Malawi, Mauritius, Rwanda, Seychelles, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The COMESA specialized institutions that attended the Meeting were Trade and Development Bank (TDB), the Africa Leather and Leather Products Institute (ALLPI), COMESA Competition Commission (CCC), COMESA Monetary Institute (CMI), COMESA Business Council and COMESA Court of Justice. The meeting was also attended by the Cooperating partners that included United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), Africa Development Bank, African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF), and African Union Development Agency (AUDA)-NEPAD.
The meeting thoroughly discussed and adopted the report of the Technical committee Meeting on Action Plan and Regional Guidelines on Local Content Policy.
During the meeting ALLPI presented its achievements in the implementation of programmes aimed at transforming the leather sector from commodity dependence to value added products basis. ALLPI also projected its 2021 IULTCS (International Union of Leather Technologists and Chemists Society) promotional Video that was appreciated by the participants. The Meeting noted the presentation by ALLPI and made the following three recommendations:
- ALLPI to be mandated to become a knowledge and innovation based institution to support SMEs to enhance their competitiveness
- ALLPI to support leather clusters towards adoption of cleaner production and appropriate environment conservancy
- ALLPI to adopt E-commerce to strengthen the trade portal currently in use to be linked with other regional platforms,
Side line to the to the meetings, ALLPI delegation also made bilateral discussions with partner organizations that included Africa Development Bank, UNIDO, and African Capacity Building Foundation on possible areas of cooperation and establishment of joint activities.
