Booming Ivory Coast Faces Elections with Confidence

Reuters, 25/09 16:12 CET

By Loucoumane Coulibaly

ABIDJAN (Reuters) – From Abidjan airport’s packed arrivals hall to the hotels and plush villas mushrooming across the city, Ivory Coast is booming, a rare African bright spot as the world’s biggest cocoa producer bounces back from years of turmoil and civil war.

With elections due in a month, many Ivorians had expected a post-conflict growth spurt to pause for breath, but such is the confidence in a smooth vote and second term for incumbent Alassane Ouattara the expected blip has failed to materialise.

The government is predicting growth of 9.6 percent this year, making the former French colony the stand-out performer on a continent being hammered by a slump in commodity prices, capital outflows and tumbling currencies.

Nor do Abidjan’s projections look fanciful.

The International Monetary Fund’s assessment is only marginally less bullish. And the bustle on the streets of the commercial capital attests to the turn-around in the four years since the nation’s second civil war in less than a decade killed 3,000 people.

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Source: Euronews