Seyid.O.Seyid

G20 Summit: African Union President Aziz Presents Challenges Facing the Union.

African Union and Mauritania President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz has spoken on behalf of African continent to 2014 G20 two days Summit in the Australian city Brisbane, as an observer representing the continent and raising up its most pressing issues of needed development in keys industrial and agricultural sectors.

President Aziz highlighted the energy prominent role in global economy as a key factor in any productive activity. He added that Africa had registered a low level of energy consumption, despite the fact of having large available natural sources. The African Union is determined to work hard on accelerating the pace of progress and development in the Continent by exploiting its resources to get rid of backwardness, stated Aziz.

For him, Africa is using only 12% of global oil reserves and 4% of gas and coal resources while its huge capabilities and raw materials are enough to improve significantly the population living conditions. Africa's share of energy does not exceed 720 thousand megawatts representing 13% out of global 23 million megawatts that was produced in 2013, revealed Aziz. He called African countries to focus on production, transmission and distribution of electrical energy for industrial usage.

President Aziz welcomed the World Bank recent global initiative to enhance the efforts of the G 20 to invest in infrastructures in order to boost global economic growth .Partnership between public and private sectors is a top priority now, recalled Aziz.

For his country, Mauritania, he refers to its gas reserves estimated at 1500 watts for over 30 years to cover local and regional needs of neighboring countries such as Senegal and Mali. He added that Panda project energy, supported by the World Bank, would produce 310 megawatts. $ 700 million private capital is need for its development, concluded the African Union and the Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz.

By SEYID OULD SEYID