East African Business Week

ARUSHA, TANZANIA- Reputable and transparent management of enterprises in the East African region will stimulate their participation in the listing of stocks on the Stock exchanges, an official has said. "This will in turn improve and attract more cross border trade and investments and overall boosting of the  confidence in doing business in East Africa," said the Secretary General of the East African Community, Amb. Dr.  Richard Sezibera.
He added that open, reliable, accurate and regular reporting of companies' performance and other disclosures was a critical starting point and would go a long way to boost the image of the region as the investment destination of choice for a critical mass of the local and international investment community.
He presented a keynote address at the 2011 Financial Reporting (FiRe) Award ceremony held at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre (KICC) in Nairobi, Kenya recently.
The function was attended by chief executive officers, leaders of public and private sector and civil society organizations, members of the Institute of Chartered Public Accountants of Kenya (ICPAK), Capital Markets Authorities (CMA), Nairobi Stock Exchange (NSE) among others.
Amb. Sezibera said "your work debunks the stereotype of our continent as the place of false starts, many grand ideas and failed experiments" adding that the newly introduced Award category of Best Company for Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya was a commendable recognition of the development of East African integration. He urged the organizers to add the category of Best Burundi Company in order to complete the picture. Amb. Sezibera reiterated that the greatest challenge in the East African integration agenda is how to get the people to think, plan and act more and more East African. The annual Financial Reporting (FiRe) Award comes against the backdrop of deepening regional integration in East Africa, particularly on the economic front.