Gulf Companies Commit $19 Billion to West Africa Infrastructure Projects

22 September 2014

The Wall Street Journal

African countries secured commitments from companies in the Persian Gulf totaling $19 billion to invest in roads, railways and airports at the first West Africa Investment Forum held in Dubai on Tuesday.
 


Construction firm Trojan General Contracting LLC, owned by Abu Dhabi's Sheikh Tahnoon Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, committed to invest up to $16 billion in roads and railway projects across the West African Economic & Monetary Union, a group of eight African countries that organized the event in the U.A.E.
 


Officials from the union, which includes Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea Bissau, Ivory Coast, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo, were in Dubai canvassing investment for 17 public-private partnership infrastructure projects in West Africa.

The group said it also had received a $1.98 billion commitment from Essar Projects, the U.A.E. subsidiary of India's Essar Group, to co-invest in road, bridge, airport and thermal-power-plant projects in Benin, Guinea Bissau and Niger.
 


A further $700 million was committed by Oman's Hasan Juma Backer Trading & Contracting LLC in a dry-port project in the Ivory Coast, the union said. No additional financial details of any deal were disclosed. The union added that each party had six months to sign a firm deal based on their commitments.
 


On Monday, one of the Dubai government's major investment arms, Investment Corporation of Dubai, said it would buy a minority stake in Nigeria's Dangote Cement for $300 million, as Gulf entities ties to West Africa deepen.

Original article by Rory Jones


Category: General