Preparations are underway to host the first CBC Board Meeting for the year 2010. CBC Board Members drawn from Djibouti (Chair), Kenya (1st Vice Chair), Malawi (2nd Vice Chair), Egypt, Uganda, Rwanda and Zambia (Members)  will convene  in Nairobi, Kenya on January 25th 2010.  The meeting will be followed by a Regional Private Sector Consultative Meeting, scheduled to take place from 26-27 January 2010. The stakeholder consultative meeting is expected to bring together private sector focal persons from the nineteen COMESA Member States. 

Other participants and delegates will be drawn from the COMESA Secretariat and its institutions, regional sectoral industrial associations, national private sector associations, women's business networks, civil society and SME's and development partners, including the International Trade Centre (ITC) and COMPETE.

The meeting will provide an open platform for genuine dialogue among private sector actors, through sharing of various experiences and lessons learnt, as well as emerging issues vis-à-vis, regional trade related policy. It is expected that opportunities, challenges and recommendations, highlighted during the meeting, will inform the CBC Draft Strategic Plan and Work Plans.

The consultative meeting is being held within the framework of the Programme for Building African Capacity for Trade (PACT II). PACT II is a programme funded by CIDA and co-implemented by the COMESA Secretariat and ITC. Under the Output 3.2 of the PACT II Programme, it is envisaged that a road map towards creating regional private sector associations, for women and SMEs, will be achieved.  In addition, the meeting is expected to contribute to intensifying public-private dialogue between CBC and the COMESA Secretariat, besides endorsement of the CBC Draft Strategic Plan and Work Plan.