Horn of Africa – Puntland, part of Somalia, has been an autonomous state for 21 years. Between 15 and 17 September 2019, the Government organized the first Puntland Investment Forum in Garowe, three working days that saw the effective participation of over 500 participants and many foreign delegations, including Show Yourself.
Puntland’s economy relies mostly on breeding, fishing, high-quality incense and relevant mineral resources, still to be exploited.
Our participation in the Forum and a number of meetings with the Local Authorities, first of all with the President, Said Abdullahi Deni, then with the Minister of Fishing, Farah M.H. Muse, the Minister of Ports, Mohamed Abdi Osman, the Minister of Trade, Industry and Investments, Abdullahi Abdi, the Minister of Justice, Ismail Mohamed Warsame, but also with private economic operators, men of culture, women activists for civil rights, archaeologists, historians, academics and students and several trips across the territory allow us to be confident in pointing out that help from international organizations to the construction of businesses and infrastructure projects destined to get the country out of a historical phase of stagnation.
Actions aimed at modernizing the fishing sector are underway, such as the improvement of fleets and the creation of state-of-the-art logistic structures that can guarantee the quality of both the cold chain and the processing of fish, in order to create value.
In the food processing sector, more projects are underway for the construction of modern slaughtering plants that allow the creation of high-quality products destined to be sold on neighboring markets.
An epitome of this new trend is the newly started project dedicated to the port of Garacad, which is meant to become the most important infrastructure development project in the whole of East Africa. Indeed, in addition to the maritime activities that will allow the Region to rely on a modern port, the port itself will become the starting point for a road that will connect Ethiopia to the sea – a 300 km road that will make it much easier to access an internal market of over 100 million people.
Given the value of the cultural and archeological sectors for the development of tourism, collaboration agreements have been signed between CAARI – Cultural and Archeo-Anthropological Research Institute of Addoun University and the Catholic University of Milan.
