The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank Group granted, on December 1, 2023, in Abidjan, a loan of 74.5 million euros to Senegal to support the implementation of the first phase of the Resource Mobilization and Industrial Development Support Program (PAMRDI-I).

The program has several objectives, such as expanding the tax base, improving efficiency in tax control and collection, making the country more attractive for private investments, promoting the private sector and its formalization, and strengthening industrial competitiveness. This new program, approved by the Board of Directors, aims to improve Senegal's macroeconomic and financial framework by increasing the mobilization of internal resources, moving from 18.2% of GDP in 2022 to 19.4% in 2024. The program supports various reforms and measures related to the Medium-Term Revenue Strategy, currently being implemented. The goal is to enable the government to have more resources to finance the key projects and programs of the Emerging Senegal Plan and thus improve the living conditions of the population," said Mohamed Chérif, head of the African Development Bank's office in Senegal.

The program will also enable the implementation of the private sector development strategy, the country's industrial policy and strategy, as well as the Integrated National Strategy for the Formalization of the Informal Economy. Senegal has potentialities that offer significant prospects for industrial development, especially through Special Economic Zones and agropoles. The program supports, among other things: (i) the implementation of the Senegal National Agropoles Development Program; (ii) the operationalization of the entrepreneur status (to encourage the formalization of the informal sector); (iii) and the establishment of the regulatory framework for the regulation of specific agricultural products and their derivatives within the agropoles. Thanks to this program, it is expected that the number of economic operators in the informal sector with entrepreneur status will increase from 0 in 2022 to 30,000 in 2024, including 30% women. Similarly, the share of the manufacturing sector in the country's GDP is expected to increase from 15.6% in 2021 to 17.6% in 2024.

As of October 31, 2023, the African Development Bank Group had an active portfolio of 35 projects in Senegal, with commitments totaling 2.1 billion euros.

Article source:businessnewsafrica