The World Bank announced in a press release published on 25 June that a loan of US$ 100 million has been awarded to Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso to bring down the cost of transportation between the two neighboring countries.

Each of the two West African countries will receive US$50 million to start a series of reform measures in road transport, ports and land ports of entry, the institution explained.

"It is the first time that the World Bank grants budgetary support to more than one country, this based on a common framework of reforms with the aim of facilitating regional integration", the Bank added.

The World Bank stresses, in this context, that the high cost of freight transport is an impediment to economic growth and the reduction of poverty, in Ivory Coast and also in Burkina Faso.

A landlocked country, Burkina Faso relies mainly on the Abidjan port for the import of its goods and the export of virtually all its cotton. A portion of the funds will be geared towards "helping to reduce handling charges and taxes at the Abidjan port", considered one of the most expensive on the continent due to a very controversial monopoly by the French group Bolloré.

This monopoly has been sharply criticized last December by the Ivorian minister of Trade and businessman, Jean-Louis Billon. "The monopoly (of the Bolloré group) on a port where most of our goods transit penalizes our economy as well as that of the Ivorian hinterland, namely Burkina Faso and Mali", said the Ivorian minister.