Benin raises over double funding target for growth drive

Paris (AFP) - Benin said it has raised nearly twice its investment target for a four-year programme to turn the country into a logistical centre and drive development over the next decade.

The tiny west African nation is trying to move from being a largely agricultural economy into a trading platform equipped with modern port and airport infrastructure.

Speaking after a meeting at the World Bank offices in Paris on Tuesday, President Thomas Boni Yayi said that he had received funding commitments worth 5.61 billion CFA francs (8.54 billion euros, $11.6 billion).

That far exceeded the government's target to raise 2.9 billion CFA francs from the multilateral and bilateral bodies present, as well as private investors.

The money will be used to finance about 50 projects as part of a so-called back-bone programme to drive growth in the country of 10 million.

These projects include a deep-water port, a new airport and the rail link between the country's economic centre of Cotonou and the capital of Niger, Niamey.

Boni Yayi said "this is a challenge for Benin" and that the country had taken "the irreversible choice of building an emerging economy by 2025."

The funding was agreed during the first day of a meeting at the World Bank, but the financiers insisted that the Benin government must complete structural reforms of the economy.

The World Bank's vice president for Africa, Makhtar Diop said Porto-Novo had to push ahead with reforms needed to improve the climate for investments and the promotion of partnerships between the public and private sectors.

Other projects covered by the programme include the construction of hydro-electric dams, the development of agriculture, the construction of a hospital and development of tourism.

Benin's economy depends mainly on agriculture and the transit of goods to its neighbour and main trading partner, Africa's largest economy, Nigeria.

In 2013, Benin's gross domestic product grew by 5.6 percent. The government wants to boost that to 8.0 percent per year in the next 20 years to reduce poverty.

To achieve this, it wants to increase investment from 19 percent of economic output to 28 percent in five years.

The World Bank meeting continued Wednesday with an investor forum. It will end Thursday with a session for expatriate Benin nationals.