American investor seeks to build Africa’s Dubai in Cote d’Ivoire

It would appear that Cote d’Ivoire is gradually asserting itself as an economic powerhouse in West Africa. The country was the fastest growing economy in 2016, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The breakneck growth rate of 8.5% by far outstripped the 3.5% rate experienced by the rest of Sub-Sahara Africa. The IMF forecasts that the country will maintain a growth trajectory of 7.4% in 2017 through to 2020.

It would, therefore, not be too ambitious to suppose that the days of political instability and social upheavals that have beleaguered this nation might as well be behind it. And far brighter days are set in the future for the largest cocoa producing country in the world.

Indeed, the entrepreneurial potential and promise held out by Code d’Ivoire has not escaped notice from one American entrepreneur.

Tiahmo Rauf is an American of African descent who is eyeing a $10 billion real estate venture in the West African country. A native of Missourri, Rauf is putting up an ultra-modern shopping complex that will rival other renowned shopping destinations with a global standing.

Mobilizing investments

He already has acquired a 50-ha (123.6 acre) piece of land in Île Boulay, an archipelago of islands in the Abidjan Lagoon on which to develop the economic town, in a 10-year plan. It will be known as Brownville. It will offer real time financial and business solutions and compete on the same footing as the Abu Dhabis and Dubais of this world.

Rauf will lead a delegation of investors from Côte d’Ivoire to a marketing tour of the United States in the coming months where he hopes to attract more investors who are projected to pump in the cash. But it is his great rapport with the showbiz fraternity of world class athletes and entertainers back home in the US that will boost the project.

He will engage 1,000 African-Americans to invest $1 million each into the project, looking to raise this capital to $10 billion.

[crp]