By privatizing four companies, the Ivorian government got 40.494 billion CFA francs ($69.2 million), announced privatization committee president Koffi Konan Christian at the ceremony for the public offering of the State’s shares in Sucrivoire, on October 4, 2016.

The four firms privatized are the société des mines d’Ity (SMI), the société ivoirienne de banque (SIB), Abengourou’s Indénié hotel complex and NEI-CEDA publishing company.

However, the previous sum does not take into account expected proceeds of IPO for the State’s two million shares in SIB, knowingly 26.14 billion CFA francs ($44.6 million) as official results for the operation which was launched last July 18 are still not out. To this adds 14.651 billion CFA francs ($25 million) from sale of 1,127,000 shares in Sucrivoire.

Mr. Koffi Konan Christian added that the Ivorian state would sell all or part of the shares it holds in various companies “in the weeks and months to come”. These include NSIA Banque, Versus Bank, the Banque de l’Habitat de Cote d’Ivoire (BHCI), the Société Nationale Ivoirienne de Travaux Publics (SONITRA), Industrial Promotion Services West Africa (IPS-WA), Cote d’Ivoire Engineering, the Ivorian Company for Textile’s Development (CIDT), etc.

Launched in December 2013, privatization programme in Cote d’Ivoire according to local authorities, aims firstly to decrease by 25% the size of state-owned firms’ portfolio and secondly to define a new scope of intervention for the state’s economic action in the non-commercial and commercial sectors.