GC&P starts new operations in Africa , Caribbean and Pacific Economic System
During the last two decades, the world economy has experienced major changes. Firms have globalised their activities to become more competitive. China, India and Far East are the most common destinations but we think that Africa and ACP will be a great business opportunity in the near future. GC&P wants to be part of this economic development both working with Italian and European companies that want to start operations in this region and contributing to the economic development of the SMEs of these countries.
As an initial step, toward the realization of the establishment of operations in the ACP, the firm is pursuing a proactive approach which portrays a forward-looking strategy for international growth.
The vision of GC & Partners for this area can best be described as a two way traffic flow, which will enhanced the invitation of potential entrepreneurs, university students to pursue training programs with established firms in the industrialized world that can be effectively applied once the trainee returns to the region and whenever the need arises, the assurance of the availability of a consultant who will work with firms in the region.
With regards to this, in September this year, the firm was invited to present a workshop on Lean Accounting during the Lean Summit Africa held in Cape Town. During the summit, we had the opportunity to discuss with the Managing Director of the Lean Institute Africa. Prof. Norman Faull, who in a nutshell, commended our efforts for our vision and mission. He also confirmed that he has finally found a partner to help spread lean transformation in the ACP. Other gurus of lean transformation that we discussed with were Jim Womack and Michael Balle on the issues of lean transformation in Small and Medium Scale enterprises in Africa. Quite a considerable number of companies that attended the summit were very interested in our approach.
In the pursuit of our main objectives, we will actively collaborate with all the International, Regional, Bilateral, Governments and Non Governmental Organizations working for the establishments of new small scale enterprise and improving existing ones. We are prepared to participate fully with these organizations with due diligence as professionals whenever there is a call to execute a project and or a program.
The firm has already been included in the databases of some of the international organizations operating in Africa, such as the African development Bank. The registration is ongoing for the other organizations.
Recently, the Vice President of Sierra Leone and Italy’s Foreign Minister have pledged to bolster ties between their countries in a joint press conference during the last Rimini meeting. The discussions centered on major bilateral economic aspects , including prospects for an investment promotion and protection agreement for Italian companies operating or planning to operate in Sierra Leone.
With GC& Partners, he emphasized that there are some encouraging signs from Africa as far as conflict resolution and investment promotion is concerned, he gave the example of Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Burundi, Liberia, Rwanda and Kenya as countries that have made significant progress in consolidating their hard earn peace and look forward to firms like ours that will assist technically in various forms (consultancy, training, Facilitating exchange of personnel, entrepreneurs, etc) to empower them to compete regionally at the beginning and in the future enter the global market. Reports on activities executed will be included in future editions of this newsletter.