Alassane Ouattara in yopougon this Tuesday

Despite the Coronavirus pandemic, Côte d'Ivoire will not experience an economic recession like some major countries in America and Europe.

Alassane Ouattara reassured his compatriots today at the end of a ceremony of laying the first of two transformation complexes of cacao.

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He announced that Côte d'Ivoire will record a positive growth rate at the end of this year that will be included in 1.5 and 2%.

"I want to tell you that thanks to these projects of this kind, next year, the economic growth that this year will be between 1.5 and 2%, which is a miracle because most of the big countries whether in America or Europe are in recession. We are not going to be in recession, we will have a positive growth rate between 1.5 and 2%," said the Ivorian Head of State.

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Optimistic, Alassane Ouattara indicated that "next year projects of this kind will achieve a growth rate of 8%."

"This means that it is an essential project, not only for economic growth, for exports, for investment, employment obviously for the industrialization of Côte d'Ivoire," he explained.

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First country producing cacao in the world, Alassane Ouattara recalled that Côte d'Ivoire processes practically 1/3 of its production, between 600 and 650 thousand tons.

He estimates that thanks to this project the country will go in two three years, towards a million tons of processing, which is really excellent. 

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"Transformation is an added value, i.e. jobs for Ivorians and this is very important and also revenue for the state budget. This is to say that this project is very important and especially that it will cost 216 billion FCFA. This will be added to the volume of investments already made, "insisted, the Head of State.

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He invited the government to work harder so that the country has a few more projects of this kind so that by 2025, Côte d'Ivoire can transform 100% of its cacao on its territory.

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