The UK-Francophone West and Central Africa Trade and Investment Forum is a major intergovernmental and private sector summit.

Key Event Information

Visas

We understand from the Home Office that applications can take up to eight weeks, if your application is already underway, we ask that you let us know your processing number so that we can alert the issuing authority and make efforts to ensure it is prioritised.
Information issued by the UK Government concerning visas can be found here

Travel

Should you require flights to the UK, our official event carrier is Royal Air Maroc (RAM) who of course have a service to Côte d’Ivoire via Casablanca. On how to apply for discounted travel, please see the information below directly from RAM:
‘The discount granted to the delegates by RAM varies between 5 and 15% on the economy fare available at the time of booking and 20% in Business class. The attendees must send an email to Leila Moossun lmoosun@royalairmaroc.com in order to make a reservation. Applicants should cc events@developingmarkets.com and mbergel@royalairmaroc.com. Once confirmed, the tickets will be issued within 24 hours.’

Hotels and event venue

The event venue is the Merchant Taylors’ Hall. The address is below and it is located
in the heart of the City, next to the Bank of England.
Merchant Taylors’ Hall
30 Threadneedle Street,
London EC2R 8JB
020 4511 6285
office@merchant-taylors.co.uk

Hotels

Option 1: Club Quarters Hotels
– Club Quarters London City
Address: 7 Gracechurch Street, London EC3V ODR
Phone number: +44 (0) 20 7666 1620
Website: https://clubquartershotels.com/london/london-city
– Club Quarters St Pauls
Address: 24 Ludgate Hill, London EC4M 7DR
Phone number: +44 (0) 20 7651 2200
Website: https://clubquartershotels.com/london/st-pauls
Option 2: Hotel Threadneedles
(This hotel is a 1 minute walk away from Merchant Taylors Hall)
Address: 5 Threadneedle Street, London EC2R 8AY
Phone number: +44 (0) 20 7657 8080
Email: reservations@hotelthreadneedles.co.uk
Website: https://www.hotelthreadneedles.co.uk/
Option 3: Premier Inn Hotels London
These are perfectly agreeable budget options and, if booked early, can be less that £100/night.
Please click through the links below for more information on each hotel. There is achoice of:
– Leicester Square
– Waterloo
– County Hall
– Blackfriars
– Holborn
– Southwark
Should these options not work, the UK-Ghana Chamber of Commerce has a further selection of offers. They can be reached on: jennifer@ukgcc.com.gh
Please note that the rooms are subject to availability and will need a credit card to hold.

Speeches

We are very keen to help with speeches which, with the very tight programme, are limited to 8-10 minutes each presentation.
Your Chair will make a short introduction to you and invite you to speak, from your chair, or from the platform, as you wish. Your speech may be in either English or French as there will be simultaneous interpretation throughout. At the end of speeches, your Chair will invite questions from the audience in a Davos-style Q&A. If you are able to present your speech to DMA by Monday, 3rd October, we will ensure that speeches have as little overlap as possible and will help style speeches to the audience should you wish.

PowerPoint, help in translation

Whereas it is fine for the speech to be delivered in either language, we ask that the PowerPoint be delivered in English. We suggest a maximum of eight slides and will provide a PowerPoint template for you to use by Monday, 19th September. We would be delighted to assist in translation should you wish and would be pleased to assist in finessing business English.

The portal

We are going to have a dedicated event Portal containing all information surrounding the event which will be live by Monday, 5th September. This portal will contain information on the event, the programme and the delegates. You may populate this with information, contact details, CEPICI connections and it is through this portal that you will receive meeting requests. We request that you upload a hi-res logo and country information here.

Exhibition area

We are offering each country a 2M by 3M exhibition area which we would suggest you have manned for the duration of the event and display suitable pop-up and printed material. Any assistance required in sourcing printers and organisations to help in the preparation of promotional materials can be found at:

CICCGB
Contact 27, Adagio point
London-SE8 3FH
+44(0)207 164 6874
Email: info@ciccgb.uk event@ciccgb.uk

On the ground services

Any assistance in cars, taxis, accommodation and ICT (including mobile phones) may be found at the above address and contact points too.

Extra-Curricular Event

VIP attendees for the event will have an opt-in/opt-out menu during the course of the event which will include:

The Opening of the London Stock Exchange

A private tour of the Houses of Parliament

A reception at the House of Lords

Meetings with All Party Parliamentary Groups

A visit to the City of London

Meetings with the Royal African Society

Business meetings at the offices of Standard Chartered Bank

Business meetings with London’s leading companies

Timings and event selection will be made available to you, as a VIP, on the event portal.

Follow on mission to country

We suggest that your Government is prepared for an outward trade mission to Côte d’Ivoire following the event and would suggest that such a trade mission is scheduled after the event in January/February 2023.

The programme for the mission would be created by DMA in conjunction with UKEF and the Government of Côte d’Ivoire. It will also be kept flexible to accommodate the needs of the attending delegates.

In short, in order to arrange for a Trade Mission, DMA would request the following support:

– Government of Côte d’Ivoire to organise transport, security and venue for business meetings

– Government of Côte d’Ivoire to host a complementary reception for the mission delegation

– Government of Côte d’Ivoire to provide simultaneous interpretation.

Programme