3.27 Billion CFA Francs: Venture Inducted by a Swiss Tropical Fruit Processing and Drying Plant in Cote d’lvoire

By Abdul Rahman Bangura–

NEW AFRICA DAILY NEWS (NADN) Freetown, Sierra Leone- A Swiss tropical fruit processing and drying plant undertaken in April 15th, 2021 in Asse (Bonoua) – a town located 60km South-East of Abidjan, with an enterprise toll of 3.27 billion CFA francs. Emmanuel Essis Esmel – The Ivorian Minister of Investment and Private Sector Development and the Swiss Ambassador to Cote d’Ivoire – Anne LuginMoulin heeded the conventional commencement of the factory.

The food processing unit is got at the heart of Ivorian pineapple production, refines 7,700 tons of mangoes, pineapples, coconuts, and bananas per year. It similarly distills 800 tons of premium quality dried fruit, 400 tons of which are organic. And this apparently, has generated 450 jobs.

Essis Esmel remarked that, the processing unit is fraction of the conception of the Ivorian executive – Alassane Ouattara, who has fix the procedure for the structural and economic transformation of the country through industrialization. He observed that “in this regard, the investment framework has been improved” with equipment to facilitate private enterprise and backing investors, which has generated results over a decade.

For 2020-2025, the president implores to speed up the process and this is evaluated in his vision of an “interdependent Cote d’Ivoire that creates more and better distributed wealth,” through the private sector, he expanded.

“Today, I am proud that many Swiss companies are present in Cote d’Ivoire (and) we have more than 40” of them, said the Swiss Ambassador, Anne Lugin-Moulin.

Accobetter-shared Swiss diplomat, “Cote d’Ivoire is one of Africa’s economic lions in the new strategy” developed by the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs of Switzerland.

The Farming sector in Cote d’Ivoire, one of the statues of the economy, develops additional 25% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and utilizes more than 50% of the national workforce. Nonetheless, the country’s investment of income developed lingers low, due to the low prices of agrarian raw materials, that needs processing.
Managing Director of HPW said “it was the exceptional agricultural and human resource conditions in Cote d’Ivoire that prompted the decision to invest” in this sector.

“We process pineapples, coconuts, bananas and papayas, in addition to mango, which is a seasonal product, ” Otmar Hofer amplified, applauding the standard climatic situations for all these fruits.

Cote d’Ivoire, the extensively influential economy in the UEMOA zone, accounts for 35% of the GDP of the sub- regional bloc. The nation’s Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) has creased since 2012 to reach €800 million, with a target of €1 million within three years.

HPW Fresh & dry Cote d’Ivoire is a subsidiary of HPW AG, in Buchs, Switzerland. Subsequently more than ten years of supplying hobby food products to the Swiss retail market, HPW AG built its first dried fruit factory in Ghana in 2010. Today, the Ghana plant employs more than 1,200 people and mainly refines the fruits of 1,400 smallholders into 2,000 tons of export products. In extension to dried fruits, the factory manufactures fruity snacks.

For New Africa Daily News Abdul Rahman Bangura Reports,  Africa Correspondent

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