FROM EIR DAILY ALERT

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Italy’s Finance Minister Tells Rome Conference, the Future of Europe Lies in Africa

Dec. 12, 2018 (EIRNS)—Covering the Boao Forum’s Asia-Europe conference in Rome at the end of last week, the South Africa-based Mining Review quotes Italian Finance Minister Giovanni Tria’s conference speech: “Africa is a continent of great change and opportunities. However, Europe finds it difficult to understand that its future lies in the South and not in the North.”

Tria said the current European narrative about Africa is all wrong:

“The continent has five distinctive advantages—a huge land mass of 30 million square km, huge resources, a fast-growing population, fewer conflicts and major developments in education, and an economy that has consistently expanded over the last 15 years, even though it still only accounts for 3% of global GDP.”

African Development Bank President Akinwumi Adesina said at the same event:

“With a growing middle class and rapid urbanization, consumer demand from a burgeoning middle class will turn the continent into a prime collective investment opportunity that cannot be ignored.... This is proof positive of an Africa in the process of full transformation. Africa is the new international investment frontier.”

Mining Review writes that with $11.6 billion, Italy was the largest European investor on the continent in 2017, and the third largest after China and the United Arab Emirates.

The slogan that the future of Europe lies in the development of the real economy of Africa was already spread by the LaRouche movement 40 years ago—which even 10 years ago, many viewed as exotic. Now, with Tria, the concept has finally begun to enter the government level in Europe.