The hundred-page document, which was validated on December 7 by experts, presents the potential of the Congolese agricultural sector, fishing, tourism, the forestry sector, the transit economy, including institutional and human assets.
The investment promotion strategy in the Republic of Congo also highlights the efforts made by the government to improve the business climate. This new roadmap is part of two major projects, namely the Business Development and Competitiveness Support Project (Padec) and the Investment Climate and Forest Sector Governance Support Project / wood (Pacigof), financed respectively by the World Bank and the African Development Bank.
Indeed, the Congolese economy under the double shock of the Covid-19 health crisis and the fall in oil prices needs to attract foreign investment to resume growth. Between 2016-2020, Congo’s growth rate averages -4.12% per year, according to data from the Ministry of the Economy. Over the same period, private investment (businesses and households) fell by -4.36%, while the contribution of the formal private sector to employment is estimated at 30%.
Opening the work of the national workshop for the validation of the investment promotion strategy, Raymond Dirat, the chief of staff of the Minister of the Economy, Industry and the Public Portfolio, insisted on the weight of the private sector in economic recovery. The sheet will enable local and foreign entrepreneurs, he added, to gather the resources necessary for the production of goods and services, that is, the means necessary for increasing national wealth.
“The government of the Republic has completed this project to develop the investment promotion strategy, with the support of the African Development Bank (ADB) and the World Bank (…) These figures for 2016-2020 confirm the structural weakness of the Congolese private sector. Under these conditions, the Congo finds itself obliged to stimulate private investment in order to improve the living conditions of its population, ”said Raymond Dirat.
The coordinator of the two projects, Padec and Pacigof, Benoît Ngayou, thinks that the document adopted by the experts will contribute to the reduction of the Congolese economy’s dependence on oil and to trace paths for sustainable exit solutions. crisis, by advocating the diversification of the economy as a model. “The Congo is experiencing a weakening of the factors of production of its economy, thus causing significant needs in terms of economic recovery and the promotion of investments”, he insisted.
It should be noted that the national workshop dedicated to the validation of the investment promotion roadmap mobilized the main actors of the private sector, in particular representatives of professional associations, the port of Brazzaville, the Congolese council of shippers, state structures. like the Agency for the Promotion of Investments.
