In the Republic of Cologne, after Jammeh Bongo took office as president, he began to fulfill his previous promises.
The Colo government has started negotiations with three French mining companies that own phosphate mines in the country on the distribution of profits from the mines.
In the process, they passed a resolution suspending exports from the phosphate mines owned by these companies in Kolo.
In this regard, these French companies naturally would not be willing to give up their interests at first.
They even put pressure on the Colo government through the French Embassy in Colo.
However, at this time, the Colo government already had evidence of collusion between former head of state Nassin Dema and the other party, and its attitude was still relatively tough in the face of pressure from France.
Moreover, when it comes to safeguarding the country's mineral interests, Colo has also received support from international organizations including the African Union and the Economic Community of West African States.
In addition, phosphate is an important raw material and is widely used in fertilizers, food processing, detergents, metallurgy, water treatment, building materials, medicine, feed, and petrochemicals.
As the fourth largest exporter of phosphate ore in Africa, Kolo's suspension of exports to these French mining companies has also affected the global price of phosphate ore.
At this time, a visiting team composed of some British companies arrived in Colo, including Argos Retail Group, Stuart Mining Group and Devonshire Ecological Agriculture Company.
This visit ultimately led to good results between these British companies and the Kolo government.
Among them, the Primark clothing chain under the Argos retail group will invest in a factory in Colo to produce clothing.
Kolo itself is a cotton-producing country, and their domestic cotton exports account for a considerable portion of their total exports. They themselves have a certain textile industry foundation.
In fact, it is not just Colo. Many countries throughout Africa have been exporting large quantities of cotton. However, after exporting the raw materials, they often need to import a large amount of ready-made clothes. Therefore, the price of clothing in Africa can be considered relatively expensive.
Primark clothing chain's investment in Kolo is, on the one hand, to support the development of Kolo's textile industry, utilize Africa's rich raw material resources, and improve Kolo's textile industry chain.
At the same time, taking advantage of Colo's low labor costs and its geographical proximity to raw material production areas will help the Primark clothing chain further reduce the cost of its clothing products and increase its competitiveness.
The Primark clothing chain plans to start building a factory in Colo before the end of the year.
The factory aims to increase production of ready-made garments, including dresses, shirts and children's wear, for export to international markets.
The total investment in the project is estimated at 25 million euros, and the United Bank of West Africa (UBWA) will provide it with a loan of 9.84 billion CFA francs (equivalent to 15 million euros).
According to the plan, the factory will cover an area of 3.7 hectares and create about 2,000 jobs in Colo.
The factory will be mainly invested by the Primark clothing chain and operated and managed by their largest OEM factory in China, with Primark holding 80% of the factory's shares.
Once completed, the factory will become the largest clothing manufacturer in Kolo.
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Stuart Mining Group has obtained the mining rights to an iron ore mine in the plateau area. They will set up a joint venture with the state-owned National Development Investment Corporation of Kolo to mine this high-quality iron ore.
The joint venture, called Kolo Stuart Mining, will be 60% owned by Stuart Mining Group and 40% by Kolo National Development Investment Company.
To put it bluntly, this joint venture will be mainly operated by Stuart Mining Group.
Using their experience and advanced technology to mine local iron ore.
The Kolo National Development Investment Company, which is owned by the Kolo government, simply makes profits by converting the original iron ore mining licensing fees into shares.
I have to say that this method is more long-lasting.
In addition to the Stuart Mining Group, Devonshire Eco-Agriculture will also invest in Colo.
They will invest in building a factory in Kolo for the in-depth processing of cash crops.
The main cash crops in Colo include coffee, cocoa beans, etc. The factory invested by Devonshire Ecological Agriculture Company here will carry out deep processing of these products and ship them to the European market for sale.
It was also because of Kolo's friendly attitude towards British companies that they won the support of the UK. The two sides agreed that Kolo President Jammeh Bongo will lead a delegation to visit the UK next month to finalize a series of cooperation and assistance agreements.
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Taking all these factors into consideration, after half a month of negotiations, the Colos government finally reached an agreement with the three French mining companies.
Together with the Nassin Dema family's shares in the three French mining companies that they have not received, the three companies will give a total of 40% of the shares of their respective local companies in Kolo to the Kolo National Development and Investment Company.
This means that they will transfer 40% of the profits from the phosphate mines - in fact, before this, they have already given each of the Nasin Dema family 25% of the shares, so in this calculation, they are only transferring 15% more...
This is easier for them to accept than the Kolo government's initial proposal to recover more than 60% of the shares through additional penalties and redemption.
The Kolo National Development and Investment Corporation will serve as the main company holding state-owned assets in certain industries in Kolo and will be directly managed by the Kolo Ministry of Finance.
In addition, they also established the Caulo Industry Investment Fund (CIIF) to invest in and increase the value of state-owned assets and support the development of some local enterprises.
The funding source of the Kolo Industrial Investment Fund is part of the profits of the National Development and Investment Corporation and part of it comes from national fiscal allocations.
It is also considered a sovereign fund of Colo.
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Almost at the same time, the West African Group acquired the remaining 40% of the shares of the capital's Port of Loti, thereby gaining full control of this best port in West Africa.
And based on this, they formed the West African Ports Group.
West African Ports Group has secured a £500 million loan from Standard Chartered Bank for the expansion and renovation of the Port of Loti.
The Port of Loti currently has two terminals, and the originally built terminal had a designed annual throughput of only 400,000 tons.
Even after the second terminal came into operation in 1984, the annual throughput of the Port of Loti did not exceed 1 million.
Moreover, up to now, the aging and obsolete equipment and low carrying capacity of the Loti Port Terminal have become factors restricting the development of the port.
You should know that the Port of Loti is currently the most prosperous port in West Africa, and its development speed has exceeded that of ports in many countries in the region.
The current Loti Port covers an area of 900 hectares (81 hectares of which are water areas), and can accommodate 8-10 cargo ships at the same time. The port has 9 warehouses with a total area of 110,000 square meters.
It is located in the center of the Gulf of Benin, with very convenient transportation. It can radiate to all countries in the Gulf of Guinea and penetrate deep into the hinterland of West Africa.
Therefore, it is not only an important commodity distribution center on the coast of West Africa, but also a cargo transshipment point for foreign trade of inland West African countries.
The 500 million pounds loan obtained by West African Ports Group this time will be used to build two new deep-water terminals at Loti Port and expand the two existing terminals.
The port's equipment will also be updated and larger trucks will be added for transportation.
According to their plan, the annual cargo throughput of Loti Port is expected to increase from the current 1 million tons to 5 million tons within two years.
After the construction and renovation of Loti Port is completed, its annual throughput will reach 10 million tons, making it the first port in West Africa and the third largest port in Africa!