Nevine Gamea, Minister of Trade and Industry, and Executive Director of the Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises Development Agency, stressed that increasing cooperation and trade exchange with African countries is one of the top priorities for the Egyptian state at present. She indicated that MSMEDA is working in coordination with various concerned authorities to benefit from the promising African market to market the products of small business owners and open new outlets for them to export and develop their products, enabling them to meet the needs of these markets. Gamea added that the expansion in the African market will help project owners to take advantage of the raw materials and natural resources available in these countries and use them to manufacture their products at reasonable and competitive prices. This came within the framework of the meeting held by MSMEDA with representatives of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), to discuss mechanisms for activating the services of the African platform "Voice of Fifty Million African Women", which is the first electronic platform that connects 50 million women in the field of commercial and industrial businesses within 38 African countries. A number of parties concerned with women participated in the meeting from ministries, institutions, national councils, federations and associations supporting women, as well as representatives of the Central Bank of Egypt. Tarek Shash, Vice Executive Director of MSMEDA, said that this meeting comes within the framework of the agency's efforts to cooperate with all development partners, to create the appropriate environment to support the small and micro enterprises sector. He added that this meeting was held with the aim of providing actual services to businesswomen through the "Fifty Million African Women" platform, which was officially launched in cooperation between MSMEDA, COMESA, and the African Development Bank, with the aim of contributing to achieving economic integration and trade exchange between African countries and work to use the natural resources available in these countries to come up with an African product that has the appropriate standards to promote it in the local and global markets. Sally Saada, head of the technical office in MSMEDA, explained that during the meeting, they discussed the action plan that will be implemented to familiarize businesswomen in Egypt with the services offered by the platform, the export opportunities available in African countries, the export mechanisms for these countries and the required procedures, in addition to identifying the natural resources available in each country.
