The economy is doing well overall and remains at the top of the region and the continent as demonstrated by the ninth report on the economic situation in Côte d'Ivoire published in July 2019 by the World Bank.

With growth of 7.4% in 2018 and a projection of 7.2% in 2019, Côte d'Ivoire continues to drive activity on the continent, just after Ethiopia and ahead of Rwanda and Senegal. The prudent monetary policy conducted by the Central Bank of West African States should help control inflation at around 0.3%. This is due in particular to the maintenance of food prices, the fall in telecommunications prices and the small increase in the price of fuel, explains this report.

The economic landscape transformed by a dynamic private sector

After declining in 2016 and 2017, the private sector is once again dynamic. The telecommunications, agri-food and building-public works sectors experienced strong growth. In addition, companies invested more in 2018. This is undoubtedly a consequence of reforms to improve the business climate while perhaps reflecting the desire to invest before the presidential elections of October 2020.

Economic dynamism supported by a constantly improving business climate

The latest Doing business report highlighted a steady improvement in Côte d'Ivoire's performance in facilitating and simplifying business management framework procedures.

Côte d'Ivoire ranks 110th in the world in terms of the ease of doing business and has improved by 12 places compared to the 2018 report. Côte d'Ivoire improved its score by 67 places from 177th place, 2013, to the 110th in 2019, in the Doing Business 2020 report released on October 24, 2019.

Faced with this improved economy, Côte d'Ivoire adopts its first program budget

The year 2020 devotes the switch to program budget mode, from January 1st.

This first State budget for the year 2020 was set at 8,061 billion FCFA, an increase of 9.9% compared to the 2019 budget. It was adopted at the end of 2019 by the National Assembly and the Ivorian Senate.

Initiated by the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA), the program budget is a method of managing public finances with the objective of instilling greater coherence between development objectives and budgetary allocations so as to increase the efficiency of spending.

Unlike the annual budget, the program budget is prepared and presented for a period of three years.

A historic decision by Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana in the cocoa sector

Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana, representing more than 60% of world cocoa production, have decided to suspend until further notice the brown gold harvest for the 2020/2021 period.

This decision was taken following a two-day meeting held in Ghana, which brought together traders, processors and chocolate makers, to discuss a mechanism for implementing a common floor price for cocoa. produced in Ivory Coast and Ghana.

Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana, since July 3, have therefore decided to establish a differential of 400 dollars per ton compared to the reference price of 2,300 dollars per ton.

In addition to this measure, Côte d'Ivoire has undertaken to stabilize its cocoa harvest at two million tonnes from the 2020-2021 marketing campaign which starts in October 2020, with a view to controlling its production and having an impact on international market prices.

The 2018-2019 harvest is expected to reach a record 2.25 million tonnes. Production will therefore have to fall by more than 11% by 2020-2021.

Conferences and Fair to boost the national and regional economy

The year 2019 was marked by the holding of the 18th African Growth Opportunity Act (AGOA) forum, from August 4 to 6 in Côte d'Ivoire, under the theme "AGOA and the Future: Development of 'a new paradigm to guide U.S.-Africa trade and investment relations'.

The 5th edition of the International Exhibition of Agriculture and Animal Resources of Abidjan (SARA) was also held from November 22 to December 1 in Abidjan. SARA 2019 recorded at the end of the 2019 edition, some 360,000 visitors against 300,000 in 2017, and 238 billion FCFA of investment intention under the 2nd generation of the National Agricultural Investment Program (PNIA 2, 2018- 2025).