Côte d'Ivoire abandons Import Substitution Policy, goes for Russian fish and ice-cream

exports, including grain, sh, sun ower and soybean oil, processed grain products and prepared meat products, among others.

Russian exports of agribusiness products to Côte d'Ivoire more than doubled to $41.6 million in 2021 from $18 million a year earlier, the report said. This included 96,100 tonnes of wheat worth $26.2 million, 12,900 tonnes of sh worth $8.7 million, 1,100 tonnes of sun ower oil worth $1.7 million and 400 tonnes of ice cream worth $0.5 million.

the reduction of purchases of cocoa beans and cocoa powder. At the same time, cocoa paste imports showed signi cant growth: 27% by volume and 37.2% by value,” the report said.

Around 7.5 million people made up the workforce. The workforce took a hit, especially in the private sector, with numerous economic crises since the 2000s. Decreasing job markets posed a huge issue as unemployment rates grew.

The Republic of Côte d'Ivoire has abandoned its import substitution policy and other economic measures, including the budgetary allocation for modernizing local agriculture and support for boosting domestic agricultural production. It, however, boasts around 64.8 per cent of arable and agricultural land, which largely remains uncultivated.

Arguably, Côte d'Ivoire, located on the Gulf of Guinea (Atlantic Ocean), could support its shing industry by spending adequate funds on acquiring simple shing equipment for local people and even start its own large-scale sh ponds but instead plans to increase sh imports into the country.

It was gathered that the West African country might spend an estimated $100 million on exports of Russian food and agricultural products this second quarter of 2023.

The Russian Agriculture Ministry's Agroexport Center said it was ready to export such products to Côte d’Ivoire as its market is promising for

Statistics show that imports from the Côte d'Ivoire are far higher and grew to $237.5 million in 2021 from $223.7 million in 2020, although by the volume they dropped to 72,600 tonnes from 74,500 tonnes. These imports included 43,800 tonnes of cocoa beans worth $141.8 million, 18,100 tonnes of cocoa paste worth $69.3 million and 3,400 tonnes of cocoa powder worth $8.5 million.

“The decrease in Russian imports by volume was due to

With rising unemployment, especially among the youth, experts suggested the government engage in economic diversi cation, focus on support for improving local production. Therefore, preliminary solutions proposed to decrease unemployment included diversifying the economy and increasing nancial support in addressing domestic food security.

With an estimated population of 29 million, the economy of Côte d'Ivoire has grown faster than that of most other African countries since independence. One possible reason for this might be

Recent gures released by the Bank of Ghana indicate that Ghana’s public debt stock still remains constant at GH¢575.7 billion at the end of November 2022.

By this, Ghana’s total public debt stock increased from about GH¢467.4 billion in September 2022 to about GHC575.7 billion in November 2022.

According to the latest Bank of Ghana’s Summary of Macroeconomic and Financial Data for the period ending March 2023, the debt gure of about GH¢575 billion still puts Gha- na’s debt to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ratio at 93.5% as of November 2022.

Per the data, the country’s domestic debt, still stands at GH¢194.7 billion at the end of December 2022, representing 31.6% of GDP.

This is compared to GH¢195.7 billion recorded in September 2022, and ¢193.1 billion in November 2022.

Already, government has taken steps to restructure its domestic debt through the Domestic debt exchange program which closed on Friday

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10th February 2023 with over 80% participation of eligible bonds.

The external component of Ghana’s total public debt is $29.2 billion (¢382.7 billion) in November 2022, equivalent to 62.1% of GDP.

This is an increase from $28.4 billion (¢271.7 billion) in September 2022, and $28.3 billion in December 2021. The signicant increase in the cedi component of the external debt is attributed to a 37% depreciation of the cedi to the dollar in 2022.

This comes at a time when the government in December 2022 suspended payments on most of its external debt, defaulting, as the country continues to nd ways to rebal- ance the economy.

The Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta has also been engaging with external creditors to conclude external debt.

As part of this, Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta travelled to China on March 23, 2023, to negotiate with China, which holds about $1.7 billion of Ghana’s debt.

He is however hopeful of a successful meeting with the Chinese government.

The BoG data once again did not provide data for the nancial sector resolution debt and other liabilities such as the energy sector debt.

Meanwhile, the government’s scal de cit to GDP narrowed to 8.1% in December 2022, as against 9.8% in November 2022.