South Sudan Seeks Foreign Investors for Public-Private Partnership

By Eunice Kilonzo

Juba---Africa’s newest country, South Sudan, is eager to draw in foreign investors to help build an economy devastated during one of Africa's longest and deadliest conflicts. There is need for heavy investment in infrastructure such as road, housing, education, health and other social amenities to spur economic growth in the newly formed country in Africa. Thus, South Sudan plans to invite investors to refurbish, revamp and reopen about eight food, cement and textile plants shut down during a decades-long civil war, in a push to create jobs and reduce dependence on imports.

Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Investment Undersecretary Elizabeth Manoa Majok said the country aimed to seek bids on the first factory, an edible oils plant in the country's Lakes state, in the first quarter of next year. After the edible oils factory, the government plans to develop a cement factory in Eastern Equatoria state, aiming to find an investor within 10 months. Two textile factories would follow, and the remainder -- which include sugar and canning -- would be assessed afterwards. Some of these plants date back to South Sudan's British colonial days, and were closed during the long civil war with the north.

"We are receiving a report (on the factory) at the end of this year, so the first quarter of the year we want to engage the potential investors in that area," she said in an interview, adding it may be tendered as a public-private partnership.

"That is why we are tackling the defunct factories. If they are to come onto the scene, it will reduce a lot of imports. We are actually channelling a lot of our hard currency outside," she said.

Majok said she was unable to give an indication of amount of investment the country was looking for or the number of jobs it hoped to create, until the completion of assessments by external consultants.

"It (independence) will allow us to decide our own destiny; it will allow us to control our resources. The resources of the south were being used to develop the north. That was a fact," Majok said.

Several Kenyan companies such as Equity Bank, Kenya Airways and Kenya Commercial Bank have established their subsidiaries in South Sudan with many others expressing their interest to invest in different sectors of the economy. South Sudan had also organised a series of international trade shows as it seeks to open up the country for foreign investors. The country plans to hold trade fairs in Brazil, India and China by the end of the year. These investments will be a major undertaking in the impoverished and war-shattered country. It would also lessen its dependence on Sudan.

South Sudan split off into a separate country after voting for independence from Sudan in a January referendum promised in a 2005 peace deal that ended the civil war. The civil war waged for all but a few years since 1955 has left South Sudan with an almost complete lack of infrastructure and industry, aside from oil. The country has few paved roads outside the capital, Juba, and large parts become inaccessible by ground transport during the rainy season. Often described as one of the world's least-developed nations, it has high levels of poverty, illiteracy and maternal mortality rates. Hospitals and schools are scarce. It also wants to diversify its economy away from oil, which provides some 98 per cent of state revenues, and reduce its heavy dependence on goods shipped in from abroad, particularly from its former civil war enemy, Sudan.