This seminar was sponsored by the European Centre for Overseas Development (C.E.D.I.M.O.M.), which has included since its foundation in 1957 about 40 public and private countries, established in the Common Market countries and in Africa, interested in the exploitation of mineral and power resources in the under-developed countries, particularly in French-speaking Africa. This conference, like others organised from time to time by the Centre, was attended by a large number of business executives and civil servants from Europe and Africa, as well as university representatives and economic journalists. The chairman was M Roland Prć, governor and president of C.E.D.I.M.O.M.; others included MM J. Alibert, a director of the Banque Internationale de l'Afrique de l'ouest (B.I.A.O.), P. A. Forthomme, Director- General of the Belgian Department of Foreign Trade and Co-operation, R. Sailer, Minister of Finance from the Ivory Coast, R. Triboulet, the French Minister of Co-operation, J. M. Jeanneney, a former Minister and Professor of the Faculty of Law and Economics at Paris, G. Panouillet, Director- General of the Banque centrale des états d'Afrique équatoriale et du Cameroun, and R. Rouques, Director-General of B.I.A.O. There were also several university professors: J. Devisse from Lille, Dupriez from Louvain, L. Hamon from Lyon, G. Leduc and M. Luchaire from Paris, besides the Ambassadors in Paris of Senegal, Congo (Brazzaville), Dahomey, Madagascar, and Niger.