Ivory Coast Seeks to Woo Agricultural Investors with Reform, Tax Breaks

Ivory Coast is striving to become self-sufficient in food and attract billions of dollars in agricultural investments through fast-tracking land reforms, offering tax incentives to agricultural firms, and the completion of infrastructure projects according to the country’s agriculture minister.

The country stands as the world’s largest producer of cocoa, and through its National Plan for Agricultural Investment (PNIA), is aiming to diversify its output, reduce poverty, bring the country’s processing capacity up to 50% of its agricultural production, and attract $3.25 billion in investments by 2016.

Agriculture accounts for 25% of Ivory Coast’s $35 billion economy, however, after 10 years of political unrest and a brief war ending in 2011, infrastructure in the country requires large-scale investment. Agriculture minister, Sangafowa Coulibaly, states that the government is moving to ease the process of land acquisition, and to speed up the process for foreign businesses looking to expand into agricultural production in the country.

In a telephone interview agriculture minister, Coulibaly told Reuters, “We want to attract foreign investors and to do that we need to undertake reforms.” “In terms of tax, that will be examined case by case, depending on the size of the investment.”

So far, since 2012, approximately 1.072 trillion CFA (US$1.8 billion) has been committed under the PNIA, with two thirds coming from foreign donors including the World Bank, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, and the European Union. The remaining funds are expected to be raised from the private sector according to the minister.

The state, which has already provided land and financial support to domestic animal feed producer, SIPRA, for a maize plantation in the north of the country, is planning to build roads and extend electrical services to rural farming regions in order to enable agricultural producers to improve productivity and better exports their crops.