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OBG introduces the reader to the different aspects of the legal system in Gabon, in partnership with Deloitte.

In conjunction with Deloitte, OBG explores the taxation system, examining Gabon’s investor-friendly environment. This chapter contains a viewpoint from Nicolas Balesme, Partner and General Manager, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, OBG’s tax partner.

Rising incomes and improvements in providing access to internet platforms are having a positive impact on Gabon’s overall media environment. Print remains the dominant media force and more targeted titles might help bring more dynamism to the newspaper segment. Radio remains Gabon’s most universal medium and is especially relevant for the rural areas, which have widely dispersed populations. Online ventures are gaining more ground, but their rapid expansion remains restricted by limited access to internet connections and advertisers’ reluctance to embrace the internet as an efficient communications platform. As the range of media outlets continues to diversify both in terms of form and content, Gabon’s advertising sector is seeing steady growth. Online news platforms are attracting a steady flow of regular visitors and are increasingly able to monetise this, however, overall investment in internet advertising remains weak. Traditional media, such as press, television, radio and outdoors advertising spaces, will continue to drive the sector.

Under the National Health Strategy adopted in 2010, Gabon has made a push to upgrade service quality and expand hospital capacity. In recent years, the country’s health strategy has centred on heavy investment in infrastructure. The Ministry of Health aims to enforce a set of quality standards by 2020, but with 86% of the population living in urban areas, rural structures face challenges including understaffing and interruption of supplies. Much remains to be done to meet Gabon’s Millennium Development Goals, yet efforts to make health governance more effective at the local level should help the authorities to identify weak points in the system and allocate resources more effectively. A drive to diversify Gabon’s economy away from commodity dependency has made education a key element of the broader plans for growth. The state is primarily working to increase the number of schools, train and recruit more teachers, and produce reliable statistics on student performance by 2020. Efforts to introduce more advanced and technical degree programmes will better equip young people to meet the demands of the shifting domestic job market. More and more specialised schools are opening with private support, but the country will need to expand these programmes quickly to meet the demands of Gabon’s growing economy. This chapter contains an interview with Léon Nzouba, Minister of Health.

Increasingly aware of the need for economic diversification, Gabon is paying unprecedented attention to the development of its tourism sector. Within the Emerging Gabon strategy, the Green Gabon plan demonstrates recognition of the fact that sustainable development will be key to growth. The upgrading of hospitality options and promotion of Gabon in the ecotourism market should soon boost the sector’s contribution to GDP. Enhanced air connections, better training of human resources, the arrival of international development projects, along with the government’s focus on sustainability, is set to accelerate development efforts.

As mobile subscriber numbers are nearing saturation, future growth will be driven by the expansion into new products and services. In anticipation, mobile operators are working to introduce value-added services and improve overall network quality. In the meantime, operators are working to expand their infrastructure networks ahead of the switch to 3G. The current absence of 3G services means that the Gabonese market has considerable room for growth, despite the small size of the population. With the arrival of the Africa Coast to Europe (ACE) fibre-optic cable and rising demand for digital services, Gabon’s IT sector is on the cusp of considerable growth. The increased bandwidth offered by the cable should drive down domestic costs for data access. Public investment in ICT has jumped in the last two years, in line with government aims to make the country a digital economy by 2016. State support is crucial to the success of these goals, but it is up to the private sector to develop the service offering in this relatively untapped market. This chapter contains interviews with Alex Bernard Bongo Ondimba, President, National Agency for Digital Infrastructure and Frequencies (ANINF); and Manoj Kohli, Managing Director and CEO International, Bharti Airtel.