Nearly 50 heads of state are expected to attend the three-day event, which began on Monday.

 

US Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker has said about $900m in business deals will be formally announced during the event.

 

But the presidents of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone have cancelled their plans to attend amid an Ebola outbreak.

 

The disease has killed more than 800 people across West Africa.

 

US President Barack Obama promised to convene²（召集） a summit during his three-country Africa tour last year, when he visited Senegal, Tanzania and South Africa.

 

The summit's focus is on trade and business with the continent, where the US lags behind China, says the BBC's African Service editor Solomon Mugera.

 

China has a trade volume with the continent of $200bn, more than double the US, and it started the Africa summit trend in 2001. Japan, India and Europe have followed.

 

The summit also comes shortly after Ghana has said it will seek financial aid from the International Monetary³ Fund (IMF) to help strengthen the West African nation's currency, which has become one of the world's worst-performing currencies this year.

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