Dubai: South Sudan’s Vice-President Riek Machar has said that projects in tourism, agriculture, oil and transportation are open for UAE investors.
In an exclusive interview with Gulf News during his visit to Dubai, Machar said he has offered both public and private sectors in the UAE to travel to South Sudan and take part in the economic process.
“There are lots of things we can do together; investments, partnership; we could be partners in exploring our natural resources, we could be partners in agriculture,” he said.
South Sudan, which became an independent state in July 2011, is a rich country in natural resources, but has low pace of development. Prior to its independence, it used to produce nearly 85 per cent of Sudanese oil output.
Machar, who is wrapping up a visit to the UAE, expressed his total satisfaction with the outcome of his trip to Dubai and Abu Dhabi during which he met with government officials, as well as officials in both Abu Dhabi Development Fund and Abu Dhabi Investment Fund, as well as the Al Maktoum Charity Foundation.
Among the investments opportunities he discussed was building an international airport in the Tali area in Juba, with an estimated cost of $5 billion (Dh18.36 billion). “This international airport would put South Sudan on the map,” he said.
“And talking about international airport, we want it to be a free zone, so the UAE investors can have a big chunk of it,” he said.
Other investment opportunities include a medical college and hospital, named “John Garang memorial teaching hospital,” that has a capacity of 800 beds, at a cost of nearly $1 billion.
Former Sudanese politician and leader Garang is the former president for South Sudan who died in a helicopter crash in 2005.
“This basically is with the government, but I also met investors who want to come, build hotels, those who want to be involved in oil industry, in rail transport,” he said. He noted that one of the UAE companies started investing in farming a few years back; he urged it to activate its investments in South Sudan.
While describing the UAE investments in his country as “very little now”, without giving any figure, he expects the flow of investments to increase in the near future.
“Flydubai will be making its first inaugural flight on 21st of April, and we hope more investments will come with the direct flight connection,” he said.
Machar also signed a memorandum of understanding with the Abu Dhabi Development Fund to build six schools and three medical centres in South Sudan. He didn’t specify the amount of the grant, but said it will build nine institutions.
The vice-president of South Sudan also asked the Al Maktoum Foundation to fund and run Islamic university in Juba along with other Islamic schools.
