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The
Republic of Guinea-Bissau
(Guinea-Bissau) is located in the Western Africa region, bordering the
Atlantic Ocean, between Guinea and Senegal
Total
area: 36,120 sq. km (land: 28,000 sq. km water: 8,120 sq. km)
Bordering countries: Guinea-Conakry
over 386 km, Senegal over 338 km
Coastline: 350 km
Population:
1,285,715 (July 2000 est.) 1,360,827 (July 2003 est.) Population growth
rate: 2.4% (July 2000 est.) 2.02% (2003 est.)
Independence
from Portugal: September 24, 1974
National holiday:
Independence Day, September 10
Constitution: May
16, 1984, amended May 4, 1991
Natural resources:
fish, timber, phosphates, bauxite, petroleum deposits
Agriculture
productions: rice, corn, beans, cassava, cashew nuts, peanuts, palm kernels,
cotton
Industrial productions: agricultural
products processing, beer, soft drinks Industrial production growth
rate: 2.60 %
Guinea-Bissau is endowed with good and valuable
natural resources - fish, timber, phosphates, bauxite, petroleum deposits. However,
the country is listed among the poorest in the world.
Indeed,
one needs to transform a potentiality into reality; and Bissau-Guinean political
leaders have, till now, failed to do so. It is only in 1994, 20 years after
independence from Portugal, that the country's first multiparty legislative and
presidential elections took place. Further, two years latter, the elected president
and the Army Chief of Staff started quarreling. The Army Chief, sacked by the
president end of 1997, engineered the uprising of the majority of the ranks; creating
a messy snafu. A civil war started in 1998; two state-power's machines coexisting:
a civil power led by the president and a military junta. Between January 1998
and February 1999 hundreds of thousands persons emigrated to neighboring Guinea-Conakry.
Finally, the president was ousted by the military junta in May 1999; and an interim
mixed civil / military government ruled the country till Mr. Koumba YALLA took
office, as elected president - in February 2000.
On September 14, 2003
President Yalla was toppled by a coup led by Army chief of staff Gen. Verissimo
Correia Seabre.
On September 28, 2003 new civilian administration - headed
by interim president Henrique Rosa and interim prime minister Antonio Artur Rosa
- sworn in after military, political parties agree to hold parliamentary and presidential
elections.
On March 28, 2004 legislative elections were held and final
results released on April 20, 2004 by the Supreme Court: the African Party for
Independence in Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde, PAIGC, won 45 of 102 parliamentary
seats; the Social Renovation Party (PRS) of former president Kumba
Yala, won 35 seats in the vote while the United Social and Democratic Party
(PSUD) of former prime minister Francisco Fadul took 17. A five-party
coalition, the Electoral Union, managed two seats and the United People's
alliance, which groups two parties, took only one. Two remaining seats,
for representatives of Guinea-Bissau's large expatriate community, were not allocated
because the authorities in the west African country opted not to allow Guinea-Bissauans
abroad to vote.
The PAIGC fought a guerrilla war to win independence from
Portuguese colonial rule. It governed from the Portuguese withdrawal in 1974 until
1999, when it was forced out of power at the end of a year-long civil war. Shortly
after the provisional results of the 28 March poll were announced by the National
Electoral Commission, PAIGC leader Carlos Gomes Junior reiterated his pledge to
become prime minister of a broad-based coalition government that would include
competent individuals from all the country's main political parties.
Guinea-Bissau's
return to constitutional rule will be completed with the holding of presidential
elections in March 2005.
Anyway, whatever may be the political outcome,
Guinea-Bissau's new rulers need to urgently revived a disrupted economy.
Indeed, Guinea-Bissau's economy is devastated. No economic development strategy
had not been devised by the policy-makers to turn around the economy neither after
the civil war, nor after the election of Yalla.
Farming and fishing
are the main economic activities from which 90% of the population earn a meager
living. Cashew nuts, peanuts, palm kernels, and fish accounting for the primary
exports (Cashew alone representing more or less 70% of total export; but cashew
plantations are aging and are in need of urgent regeneration and maintenance.)
The potential for an accelerated and sustained economic growth does exist
if Guinea-Bissau's economic planners / political leaders set up a strategic development
scheme to exploit to the maximum the agriculture sector (this is not the case
currently) to boost development of:
1- Fish resources (sea catches and
fish farming)
2- Forestry resources
3- Cereals production.
That
is the only way to trigger the economic development of the country on a solid
basis. - Click here to review a Strategic Development
Scheme applicable to Guinea-Bissau.
The other alternative - developing
of existing and proved oil fields; and known mineral deposits (phosphates,
bauxite) - is unlikely to be implemented in a near future because of:
1- Non-existing efficient infrastructure
2- High cost of development.
3- Political internal and international instability (recurrent skirmishes
on borders with Senegal; Senegal's
national army is battling against Senegalese rebels from Senegal' southern Casamance
region; these rebels are actively supported by some factions in Guinea-Bissau)
Guinea-Bissau - once political stability restored - is doubtless a country
bound to generate double digit return on vested money because there is a lot
of Catch up to be done in all
sectors of the economy.
There are business opportunities
in infrastructure establishment (roads, bridges, hospitals); in tourism and in
agribusiness.
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