Wallis Bay
A Namibia Chamber of Commerce and Industry (NCCI) strategic planning session, which brings together key officials of the NCCI Secretariat country-wide, NCCI branch leaders, chief executive officers of identified local authorities and United States Peace Corp volunteers attached to the chamber kicked off at Walvis Bay yesterday.
The retreat is aimed at strategising on how NCCI branches, together with government at local and regional levels, should be involved in driving the Competitiveness Agenda 2020 (dubbed Agenda 2020) as well as in rolling out and implementing the chamber’s Enterprise Development Program (EDP) in all regions of the country.
Adopted by the NCCI at its 2015 annual general meeting, Agenda 2020 is aimed at making Namibia the most competitive economy in Africa and the best country to do business in on the African continent by the year 2020.
Initial engagements to get buy-in from the government were held with President Hage Geingob in July 2015. At the meeting one of the agreements reached was the establishment of a High Level Dialogue Council Forum to be held bi-annually with President Geingob together with his cabinet ministers and other key stakeholders.
The aim of this forum is to ensure regular, structured, two-way public private dialogues in relation to the laws, regulations, policies, procedures and strategies affecting the competitiveness of the Namibian economy. The vision is to develop effective public private dialogue, ultimately leading to public private partnership and improving Namibia’s competitiveness. About 50 delegates were expected to attend the retreat.