| 
  • If you are citizen of an European Union member nation, you may not use this service unless you are at least 16 years old.

  • Whenever you search in PBworks or on the Web, Dokkio Sidebar (from the makers of PBworks) will run the same search in your Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, Gmail, Slack, and browsed web pages. Now you can find what you're looking for wherever it lives. Try Dokkio Sidebar for free.

View
 

Economic Conditions and Trade

Page history last edited by Joe 12 years, 4 months ago

Page Editor is Joe Hackett. Please email me with suggestions, comments, or compliments!

Economic Conditions and Trade

Guinea-Bissau

 

                                               

Farmer harvesting peanuts in Bissau.                                                     Source: www.everyculture.com

 

One of the five poorest countries in the world, Guinea-Bissau depends mainly on

farming and fishing. Cashew crops have increased remarkably in recent years,

and the country now ranks fifth in cashew production. Guinea-Bissau exports fish

and seafood along with small amounts of peanuts, palm kernels, and timber. Rice

is the major crop and staple food.

 

Source:  http://www.afribiz.info/

 

Economic Statistics

 

- Gross Domestic Product: (2009): $826 million.

 

- Annual growth rate: (2009): 3%.

 

- Gross Dosmestic Product per capita: (2009): $512.

 

- Natural resources: Fish and timber. Bauxite and phosphate deposits are 

  not exploited; offshore petroleum.

 

- Foreign aid: Guinea-Bissau is desperately poor, (ranked 173rd out of 182 )

with huge foreign debt and an economy that limps along thanks to foreign aid.

 

- Agriculture: (62% of GDP): Products--cashews, tropical fruits, rice, peanuts, 

  cotton, palm oil. Arable land--11%. Forested--38%.

 

- Industry: (12% of GDP): Cashew processing. Very little industrial capacity 

  remains following the 1998 internal conflict.

 

- Major suppliers: (2009)--Portugal 24.5%, Senegal 17.2%, Pakistan 4.8%, 

France 4.6%.

 

Top Five Imports and Exports

Major Illicit Trade Types

1. Drug Trafficking:  

An estimated 50 tons of illicit drugs, worth almost US$2 billion, pass through the region each year,

according to UN reports, which approximate that some 27% of the cocaine consumed annually in Europe

transits through West Africa.

 

2.  Child Trafficking:

Child trafficking from Guinea-Bissau to Senegal is on the decline, partly due to better collaboration among

local residents, civil society groups and government.

 

3.  Bush Meat sales:

Unsustainable levels of bushmeat hunting could threaten both wildlife populations and the people who

depend on bushmeat for food or income.  

 


The Future of Guinea-Bissau

 

Future of Guinea-Bissau depends on how it handles challenges like drug and child 

trafficking, large-scale poverty, corruption and heavy external debt. Fishing as an industry 

can propel Guinea-Bissau’s economy, but illegal fishing poses a few problems for that sector. 

 

Source: www.afribiz.info/


 

Comments (5)

Annette Diniz said

at 9:27 am on Feb 2, 2011

Does the heavy external debt come from their imports from other countries or borrowing?

Joe said

at 11:29 am on Feb 2, 2011

Yes, Guinea Bissau relies on imports from other countries due to a poor economy that relies on a narrow selection of exports such as cashews, shrimp and sawn lumber. There is little economic infrastructure emerging because Bissau was essentially decapitalized for 10 years during a civil war from late 1980's.

Joe said

at 11:30 am on Feb 2, 2011

Here's a great link to the economic and historical understanding of Guinea-Bissau:
http://fic.wharton.upenn.edu/fic/africa/Guinea-Bissau%20Final.pdf

Shellar said

at 10:41 am on Feb 2, 2011

It would also be interesting to see how much a family earns a year to see with how much do they survive....(example: american families spend a week in food more or less $350..while in Chad $1.32)

SfWhitehorn@gmail.com said

at 6:22 pm on Feb 7, 2011

I appreciate this information as a segueway into drug trafficking and the overlaps of economic conditions of trade. Great presentation.

You don't have permission to comment on this page.