Pan African Global Trade and Investment Conference

The Africa-USA International Chamber of Commerce and Industry (AfUSA) is a non-profit, mutual benefit, business organization established to promote trade, commerce, educational, and cultural development between the people and business enterprises of the United States of America and the nation states in Africa. We actuate our mission through bilateral trade programs that:

• Contribute to the development of Africa-USA business opportunities

• Encourage and facilitate mutual Africa – USA business investment

• Promote economic, cultural and human resource development.

• Correct the commercial misunderstandings of Africa

• Recruit minority and women owned small and medium-sized businesses to stimulate Africa-USA bilateral trade opportunities,

• Broaden the existing trade finance infrastructure for Africa-USA international trade transactions, and

• Generating federal and state interest and expenditures directly related to Africa-USA bilateral trade promotion.

 

AfUSA has led trade missions to Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda, Ghana and Ethiopia. Each mission has served to expose African-America small business owners to business investment opportunities in each African nation they visited. Each mission also exposed continental African’s in each nation to opportunities to enter into joint venture business activities that have resulted in the establishment of a housing development project in Uganda, a textile manufacturing syndicate headquartered in Ghana, a major aluminum smelting plant acquisition project in Nigeria and the establishment of Sister Port relationships with the Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Durban.

 

AfUSA has conducted Pan African Trade and Investment Conferences and trade pavilions in collaboration with the cities of Inglewood and Carson, the Los Angeles Black Business Expo and Trade Show (BBX), California State University Dominguez Hills, California State University Sacramento, the University of Southern California (USC) and the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA).

 

AfUSA has also hosted U.S. State department delegations from Africa seeking investment opportunities in the US and African dignitaries which have included Ambassadors and Ministers of Trade from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Ghana, Libya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Nigeria.

 

A consistent theme we have encountered has been the need to provide trade and not aid to promote and facilitate Africa’s economic development. Economic development partnership and investment discussions with African public and private sector business representatives have focused on bilateral business and investment opportunities in Agriculture, Textiles and Apparel, Education, Health Care, Oil & Gas, Environmental Protection, Mining, Tourism, Water & Power, and Telecommunications.  Discussions have highlighted the need for both infrastructure development and local empowerment of small business enterprises in Africa and the African Diaspora.

 

AfUSA believes that the African Union’s current focus on establishing a functioning economic, cultural and political relationships with the African Diaspora can provide ongoing opportunities for communication exchanges, technology transfers, and related training, education and economic development.  AfUSA is currently involved in establishing this network via Afro-centric trade conferences and state of the art telecommunications technology supported by strategically planned trade missions to promote and facilitate the development of emerging economies in the Pan African Diaspora and the African continent.