Last Wednesday, Oct. 4, 2017, the Ivorian government has approved in a ministers’ council the 2018 budget which stands at FCFA6723.5 billion (about $12.06 billion).

Under the budget, internal revenues, tax and non-tax revenues made up more than 80% of the total revenues expected while investments represent 29.6% of expenditures. Pro-poor expenditures, that is spending in the favor of less-favored populations, have been estimated at FCFA2290.8 billion (about $4.11 billion), up 10.7% compared to 2017.

According to the Ivorian government, the “2018 budget was drawn in an unfavorable sociopolitical and economic environment, marked by external and internal shocks recorded at the beginning of 2017. However, the national economy should keep consolidating in 2018 with growth forecast at 8.3% driven by all sectors of activities, with a particular accent on secondary and tertiary sectors, whose contributions to growth have been estimated at 3.7% and 2.3% respectively”.

Still according to the government, the 2018 budget will help focus of its priorities, knowingly the construction of more socio-economic infrastructures and a better provision of basic services. Also by improving the education system to better adapt to the employment market, the consolidation of the health system making it more accessible to the less favored. Finally, it will focus on improve food security of populations.

On another side, “the 2018 budget focuses particularly on job creation, for the youth mostly, and aims to boost security and defense to make the nation more resilient to terrorist threats, a lot of which have been recorded in the region recently,” indicates the statement of the ministers’ council.

Compared the 2017 budget which stood at FCFA6447.6 billion (about $11.56 billion), next year’s budget is up 4.3%.

One may indeed recall that the 2017 budget, initially fixed at FCFA6501.4 billion (about $11.66 billion) was scaled down by FCFA53.8 billion (about $96.5 million) after the adoption in June 2017 of a finance amending law by the Ivorian parliament.

This situation was spurred by the socio-economic environment in Q1 2017, marked by external and internal shocks which for their part were driven by a 9.3% drop in prices of general commodities and a decrease of about 35% of cocoa’s prices, an increase in crude’s prices and social claims of Ivorian military staff and civil servants. Thus, economic growth in 2017 which was initially expected at 8.9% was scaled down to 8.5%.