Gabon

Home to 1.63m people, Gabon has one of the most dynamic insurance markets in Central and West Africa. Although personal lines are beginning to expand, sector development has been driven by large-scale industrial operations. The domestic financial sector does not have the capacity to fully underwrite major industrial and transport risks, but operators circumvent this...

As a bastion of liquidity within the financially turbulent Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa (Communauté Économique des États de l’Afrique Centrale, CEMAC), Gabon competes head-on with the more populous Cameroon for the title of regional banking centre. While its lenders enjoy a cash surplus – total bank credit of CFA2.4trn (€3.6bn) accounted for 23.3% of...

Developing the downstream timber industry is a central element of Gabon’s strategy to achieve economic diversification and long-term growth through domestic processing of its natural resources. With 85% of the country under tropical forest cover, the timber sector benefits from an extensive raw materials supply. It is also a major employer, and absorbs more of the...

The ratification of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (Programme Détaillé pour le Développement Agricole en Afrique, PDDAA) by Gabon in May 2013 is a step towards increasing output in one of the government’s priority sectors. Introduced in 2003 by the New Partnership for Africa’s Development, the PDDAA is an African...

An historic staple of West and Central African agriculture, palm oil production on the continent began to decline in the 1960s as African governments prioritised oil and mineral extraction over agriculture. At the same time, the establishment of large-scale oil palm farms in Asia pushed down the price of imported palm oil products, prompting a further decline in Africa’s...