São Paulo – The CEO of the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce, Michel Alaby, paid a visit this Thursday (17th) to the Nouadhibou Free Zone, an industry and logistics complex on the Mauritanian coast. It was the executive’s final appointment in a three-day business prospecting trip to the African country.
According to him, the Free Zone was established in 2013 to attract investment into mining, oil and gas, storage, sea transportation, fishery, information technology and tourism. “Nouadhibou has mineral resource availability (iron ore), abundant fish, oil and gas and a potential for tourism,” he said.
According to Alaby, the Free Zone’s chairman Mohamed Ould Daf said the port city is the country’s economic capital and enjoys a “central” geographic position, near Europe, the Americas and the primary routes of ocean freight forwarders, “and provides an active interface between Africa and the Mediterranean.”
The Free Zone spans 178000 acres of land and 148,000 acres of offshore area, with a potential to produce 1.5 million tons of fishery per year, capacity to export 12 million annual tons of ore, as well as comprising copper, gypsum and sea salt reserves.
The infrastructure includes terminals for container, ores, and oil and gas, a ship repair area, access to other transportation modes such as a railway and roads, and subsidized electric energy.
Incentives offered to investors include full tax exemption until the seventh year of operation, exemption on imports of machinery, equipment and raw material, full authorization for capital transfers with no central bank oversight, and dispute resolution via international arbitration.
According to the Alaby, all of the paperwork involved in setting up a business is done by a single government body. The executive added that so far, 210 projects have been submitted to this body, 125 of which are operational at this time. They belong to local investors as well as ones from Spain, Morocco, Belgium, Italy, France, China, Greece and Lithuania.
Alaby remarked that the Free Zone relies on World Bank funding to fishery-related activities (US$ 20 million) and mining (US$ 30 million). It also sustains an agreement with the Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector, an arm of the Islamic Development Bank, based in Saudi Arabia, as well as a strategic partnership with the Aqaba Free Zone, in Jordan, and talks are underway for an agreement with the Dubai Ports Authority to manage the facilities.
Alaby travelled to Nouadhibou alongside the chairman of the Mauritanian Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture, Mohamedou Ould Mohamed Mahmoud. The meeting was also attended by the Free Zone’s CEO El Helianto Ould Cheia.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
