Message of the President * * * * *

H.E. Mr. Marc RAVALOMANANA President of the Republic of Madagascar

Madagascar enters the third millennium with all required assets to commit itself resolutely towards fast and sustainable development. Madagascar is willing to use creativity, competitiveness and commercial integration, as the unavoidable elements to achieve high and shared growth targets. For this reason, actions are undertaken to open the country to foreign investments without distinction, and to any type of economic, commercial or technical partnership generating a rational resources exploitation and valorization. Thus, the great island intends to fully benefit from the opportunities offered by globalization to promote its assets and exchanges. Roads were opened by the textile export processing companies and shrimps aquaculture, and many other sectors like tourism, mining or handcraft, still remain to be deeply explored. The current period is a form of "renaissance" for the Malagasy people, with the support of their friends whoever they are and whenever they come from. Together, they build the bases of a bright future for a nation which is united in its diversity and by the adversity, but especially by a shared vision of a young and responsible, modern and interdependent society, relying on communities, and the holder of a unique inheritance: a world apart, out of time, called Madagascar, a "Land of Opportunity".