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UK- Mali Trades & Investment Forum - 20 April 2016 - London

Read UK Ambassador to Mali's welcome address at the UK-Mali Trades & Investment Forum, which took place in London on 20 April 2016

Joanne Adamson, HMA to Mali and Niger

Your Excellency Hon. Konimba SIDIBE, Minister for the Promotion of Investment and Private Sector, Your Excellency Hon. Boubou CISSÉ, Minister of Economy and Finance, Your Excellency Hon. Mamadou Frankaly KEITA, Minister of Energy and Water, Your Excellency Hon. Cheickna Seydi Ahamady DIAWARRA, Minister of Mines, I would like to thank you for gracing us all with your presence.

Honoured speakers, peers, guests, it’s my pleasant duty to bid you all a warm welcome. We are delighted to have you here to participate and share in the inaugural Mali-UK Trade and Investments Forum organised in collaboration with our esteemed partners Developing Markets Associates and the Malian Ministry for the Promotion of Investment and Private Sector. Thank you for coming. That so many of you travelled long distances serves to remind us all how important our partnership is.

Her Majesty’s Government, the British Embassy Bamako, Developing Markets Associates and the Malian Government through the Ministry for the Promotion of Investment and Private Sector’s aim is to strengthen the partnership between Mali and the UK. Our task today is to move this partnership one more step forward. Our mission today is to provide practical information on Mali and its business environment.

Thanks to the dedication and hard work of my revered partners we are here today to assess how we can all work together to reach our ultimate goal, that is to strengthen the partnership between Mali and the UK.

We are honoured to have with us today His Excellency Hon. Konimba SIDIBE, Minister for the Promotion of Investment and Private Sector, His Excellency Hon. Boubou CISSÉ, Minister of Economy and Finance, His Excellency Hon. Mamadou Frankaly KEITA, Minister of Energy and Water, His Excellency Hon. Cheickna Seydi Ahamady DIAWARRA, Minister of Mines. We are also grateful for the presence of all our speakers/panellists. All of them are esteemed specialists in Malian economy and business sector and will provide us with invaluable key information on these topics.

And before I handover to His Excellency Hon. Sékou Gaoussou CISSE, Malian Ambassador to Belgium, who will outline the day’s events, I want to say once more on behalf of all my distinguished partners and Her Majesty’s Government, welcome. It is a pleasure to see so many of you here.

Published 28 April 2016