Project finance is one of the main drivers of business in the Gabonese banking sector. The IMF describes most local banking activity as “concentrated on large companies financing large-scale projects”. Despite this, some investment-intensive sectors in particular, such as oil and gas and mining, tend to raise financing abroad rather than from...
The Gabonese Initiative for Achieving Agricultural Outcomes with Engaged Citizenry (Gabonaise des Réalisations Agricoles et des Initiatives des Nationaux Engagés, GRAINE) is part of the government’s ambition to boost agriculture’s contribution to GDP from 5% to 20% by 2025, and, in the process, reduce the country’s dependence on food imports....
The country is home to the Stock Exchange of Central Africa (Bourse des Valeurs Mobilières d’Afrique Centrale, BVMAC), which has been operational since 2008 and is the regional exchange for the CEMAC economic bloc. The market has seen only light activity, in particular as regards equity listings. In its 2014 Article IV Consultation for Gabon...
Mobile money has been a hot topic since Kenyan mobile operator Safaricom launched its M-PESA money transfer system in 2007. The initiative subsequently saw astonishing success, and now by some accounts is responsible for cash transfers equivalent in volume to roughly one-third of Kenya’s GDP. However, replicating that immediate success elsewhere...
Driven by increasing corporate activity on the back of steady headline growth, Gabon has developed a comparatively large insurance sector, despite the country’s small population. Much of the sector’s growth has been linked to industrial development and expansion of infrastructure in recent years, mostly encouraged by the government’s Emerging...
Although penetration of insurance services has typically been higher in Gabon than most surrounding markets, the country has shown that room for growth remains. Securing new insurance customers has sometimes been challenging for providers, due to low market awareness, particularly among low-income earners, and insufficiently developed...
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