Abu Dhabi investor backs Africa projects with $16bn

The West Africa Investment Forum at the Madinat Jumeirah conference centre in Dubai. Antonie Robertson / The National

One of Abu Dhabi’s biggest investors has committed to be part of a $16bn package of transport projects in West Africa as part of a programme to help revive the region’s ailing infrastructure.

Trojan General Contracting, part of the Royal Group owned by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, has invested the sum along with Earth Capital, an environmental investment group, across the region of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA, after its French acronym).

The deal was announced at a ceremony in Dubai, opened by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, attended by the heads of state of the eight African countries, global financiers and investing institutions.

Trojan will invest the money as an equity participant in the project to build roads and railways across the region.

A total of $19bn was committed at the Dubai gathering. In addition to Trojan’s investment, Essar Projects, the UAE subsidiary of India’s industrial group Essar, pledged to invest $1.9bn in road, bridge, airport and power plant facilities in several of the African countries.

The UEMOA is an economic union of Senegal, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Togo, Benin, Niger, Guinea Bissau and Mali.

Another $700m was pledged at the meeting by the Oman trading group Hasan Juma Backer Trading and Contracting for a dry port in Ivory Coast. A statement after the meeting said Senegal, the biggest economy in the UEMOA, was the most popular investment destination in the region.

The initiative is part of a growing investor interest in the fast-growing but troubled region.

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