World Bank developing economic policy for southern Sudan

Jan 19, 2006 (NAIROBI) — The World Bank is currently developing an economic policy for southern Sudan which is expected to help potential investors as the vast region embarks on massive reconstruction, a senior official said here on Thursday.

Word Bank’s Senior Private Sector Development Specialist Magdi Amin said the global development body was developing a private sector program as well as a policy framework which will lay out all the regulatory requirements for the potential investors.

“We are addressing policy framework which will address issues such as the review of the banking laws, company registration and the empowerment of southern Sudanese entrepreneurs,” Amin said during a meeting with Kenyan Trade and Industry Minister Mukhisa Kituyi in Nairobi.

He said trade financing and capacity building were also at the top of the bank’s agenda for the vast region.

Kituyi said for peace to be sustainable in southern Sudan, it must be backed by sound economic opportunities, adding that Kenya’s entrepreneurs were keen on playing a leading role in the reconstruction of the region.

Sudan’s economy in the government-controlled north has prospered in recent years due to oil wealth and foreign business interests from Asia and the Middle East. Under the peace pact signed in 2005, the unity government would equally divide the country’s oil wealth between the north and the south.

(Xinhua)