An amount of 771 billion FCFA has been paid to the Ivorian private sector in terms of domestic debt since the beginning of the year until today, announced Friday in Abidjan, the Ivorian Minister of Economy and Finance, Adama Coulibaly .

The Minister was speaking in an opening speech at a meeting of the Technical Committee for State-Private Sector Consultation which brought together members of the government and employers' organizations.

“The first topic was about debt issues. The private sector has expressed the wish to see the issue of domestic debt handled with great diligence. We told them that a lot of efforts have been made by recalling that since the beginning of the year until now there is an amount of 771 billion FCFA which has been paid to the private sector in terms of internal debt", a explained Mr. Coulibaly to the press at the end of this meeting.

In the same vein, the government has undertaken to strengthen the foundations of its partnership with the private sector by relaunching dialogue at the level of the State-private sector consultation framework.

“It is important to create the most optimal conditions in order to enable our national private sector to fully play its part as a creator of wealth and a major provider of jobs. As such, the government intends to strengthen the foundations of the state-private sector partnership,” said Adama Coulibaly.

“We also told them that in accordance with the commitments we have made for what is called the floating debt, efforts will be made to ensure that this floating debt is also dealt with in a timely manner. We also discussed the issue of taxation. What we have retained is that this dialogue can continue,” he added.

Underlining the determining role of the private sector in the economic growth of the country, Mr. Coulibaly assured that the government can only be attentive to the concerns of this sector.

Previously Faman Touré, the president of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Côte d'Ivoire welcomed the support of the Ivorian government to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) considering that a lot of efforts have been made.

However, Mr. Touré pointed out that there are still many outstanding concerns from the private sector. Among these concerns, he cited, among others, the taxation of SMEs at the level of the synthetic tax and the property tax at the level of the tourism sector.

“We came to debate, but we can say that there has been progress in terms of the concerns of the private sector. Concrete efforts are being made by the government, but we hope that things will improve,” maintained Mr. Touré.

The State-Private Sector Consultation Committee is a forum for discussion between the Ivorian government and the various private sectors of activity in Côte d'Ivoire.

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