Djibouti: small country great promise (Jeune Afrique No. 2719 02 17, 2013)
Investors flock to position themselves in a market attractive, installed along one of the shipping lanes the busiest in the world.
Determined to play to its geographical advantages, Djibouti multiplies these months projects that could boost its economy over the next decade, mainly in the transport and energy sectors. Comfortably the feet in water, along one of the busiest in the world and at the gates of an Ethiopian market which remains to help the country fulfil its role of hub in the heart of a region that is also conducive to trade than poor infrastructure maritime. He can count on financial assistance from many countries, aware of its potential in the sub-region. Starting with China: Exim Bank of China will finance to the tune of $ 70 million a wharf for the export of Salt Lake Assal and where should leave 4.5 million tons per year by 2016. This folder - still under consideration – of the future terminal for liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Djibouti for $ 2.5 billion, the Chinese investment bank also finances, for 4 billion dollars, the renovation of the railway axis Djibouti - Addis Ababa, which should be completed in 2016. Associated with Exim Bank of India, it also contributes to the construction of the rail line between the port of Tadjourah and its hinterland, whose cost is estimated at $ 3.8 billion.
Know-how. Funded Arabic and Saudi Development Fund in the amount of $ 67 million, the deep water of Tadjourah port, whose work started in December 2012, will allow from 2015 to export each year almost 8 million tonnes of potash from the North of Ethiopia. In transport, it is one of the few projects that has eluded the Chinese, with that of the future port hydrocarbon entrusted to Swiss investors, without for the moment.
In the water and energy sectors, the contributors are more varied. After announced end of 2012 its commitment to all renewable by 2020, Djibouti has decided to put in value its geothermal resources using the know-how of the Iceland and the Mexico. The first geothermal power plant will be yet Chinese, after the signing of the contract in July 2012 with the Sinopec group for the for the construction of a 300 MW unit in the region of Lake Assal. The European union provides EUR 41 million for the construction before the end of this year of a desalination plant powered by wind turbines that could well be Qatari. PL