Somali prime minister in Italy to attend business forum on Somalia

High delegation led by Somali Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Ali has reached Italy to attend business forum on Somalia hosted by Italian Government.

The Somali delegates were received at airport by Some of Italian officials.

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has met with his counterpart Somalia’s premier Omar where the two discussed wide range of issues including the bilateral relations between the two countries, security.

Businesses companies, government officials and other delegates converged in Rome on the 16th and 17th of March for Somali Business Forum.

Italy has launched various development projects in the country in recent years, ranging from d sanitation projects to the support rebuilding of Somali forces.

Around one-third of Somali land — which is some 630,000 square kilometers in total — is suitable for farming.

Three times the size of the land border, the sea off of Somalia has 2 million square kilometers of exclusive economic zones. The Somali economy is based on agriculture and animal husbandry.

In fact, these two sectors compose 40 percent of Somalia’s gross domestic product (GDP), while income from exports makes up more than 50 percent.
Total exports from Somalia are around $600 million annually, while imports are $1.5 billion a year.

Somalia’s primary exports are sugar, corn, fish, coal and bananas. There are also some 40 million livestock in Somalia. During 2015, 5 million livestock from Somalia were exported to the Gulf States.

In Somalia, sectors such as food processing and packaging, energy, agricultural equipment, construction materials, textiles, and clothing workshops all present great partnership opportunities for potential investors.

Since 1991, however, all government institutions in Somalia have been in a state of collapse.

There are currently two major obstacles to the re-creation of the Somali state. One is that the state has no income. Its 2016 budget was $220 million. Half of this came from donations. In fact, the state can only earn $100 million for itself.

The second obstacle is terrorism springing from the al-Shabaab group. Most recently, al-Shabaab carried out a bombing on a Daallo Airways passenger plane flying from Mogadishu to Djibouti.