Senegal woos potential US investors with blueprint to boost infrastructure

The ‘Emerging Senegal Plan’ aims to establish “the most modern infrastructure to support production, improvements in the investment climate, a reinforcement of human capital, and the satisfaction of financing needs”.

Senegal’s government, which presented the plan in Washington DC to private equity funds, financial institutions, international agencies and US firms, said the country’s president, Macky Sall, wanted to “accelerate the country's progress towards emerging-market status and address inequities in income and opportunity”. 

Senegal’s finance and economy minister Amadou Ba and the minister responsible for promoting the government’s plan, Abdul Aziz Tall, said Senegal aimed to transform its economy by developing “new sectors to create wealth, jobs, and social inclusion, with a strong capacity to export and attract investment”. 

The ministers said Senegal’s ‘shopping list’ of projects for which international participation is being sought covered sectors such as infrastructure, mining, agriculture, tourism, education and health.

According to the plan Senegal’s government will, “as a matter of urgency”, launch key reforms by 2016 to “substantially improve the business environment”. Reforms will focus in particular on the “computerisation of administrative procedures, establishment of a fiscal and legal framework which is simple and motivating, improvement in the competitiveness of factors of production, and the promotion of high-impact investment”.

The plan said these reforms “should also be accompanied by proactive economic diplomacy, and deeper regional integration to strengthen regional stability and take advantage of the opportunities offered by external markets”.

Senegal’s government has also pledged to “support a greater involvement by the Senegalese diaspora in national development”.

The managing director of the International Monetary Fund Christine Lagarde has described the plan as “an ambitious yet feasible path towards emerging economy status”.

Lagarde said: “Accelerating and broadening the reforms required by this plan are integral to this vision. A vision that Senegal shares with many of its African peers. Broadening the scope of the regulatory reforms that have started can help attract much needed foreign investment. Policies should also focus on supporting small and medium enterprises.”

In a report published last year by PwC, Senegal’s capital Dakar was named as one of the upcoming 10 cities in sub-Saharan Africa that are expected to see faster economic growth than any other region by 2040.

The report said chief executive officers are increasingly recognising the “untapped potential” of the region, as foreign investors will be attracted by the potential investment opportunities offered by Dakar and other major cities.