Thank you very much, dear Giorgia,

Dear friends,

First of all, thank you for hosting us here in this stunning corner of the eternal city. It is a pleasure to be here with you, my friends, today. We are here to reaffirm Europes strong commitment in a partnership together with Africa. And I would like to thank Italy for putting the cooperation with Africa at the heart of our action.

The Mattei plan is a perfect example of how we shape together the Global Gateway. Global Gateway is an investment programme of the European Union of EUR 300 billion; EUR 150 billion of that goes to Africa. So this is Team Europe at work, and it is teamwork with Africa that we are showing today.

Indeed, as you said, I want to thank our African partners for being here today because we share a common vision. We are working together in developing clean energy. This is a continent of abundance and abundance of resources. What is missing is the infrastructure, so we invest in the infrastructure for clean energy and modern economic corridors. Today we discuss how we are linking our digital markets, but also how, for example, to unlock the food value chain, but most importantly to add, to how to train people to develop the skills of the people in the region.

Global Gateway is an investment agenda that combines public with private capital and the international financing institutions. Through the investment agenda, we are turning our common vision into reality.

We have a common idea where we want to go to. Today it is about implementing, getting it on the road, making it happen. And therefore, we are today concluding several very important agreements that will bring private capital to Africa and create tangible impact on the ground. So, I am very much looking forward to our discussions today.

Thank you for inviting me here.