Somali Parliament approves foreign investment law

Mogadishu – Somalia’s Parliament approved the foreign investment law Monday as the country’s economy which survived years of chaos still faces hurdles as result of lack of regulations and competition.

The development is a breakthrough for many foreign companies that showed appetite to invest the horn of Africa nation which has not adopted any foreign investment law for more than two decades.

Voting to endorse the law, out of 147 lawmakers present at the session, 143 Somali MPs voted in favor of the law, one rejected while three others abstained, according to the Parliament speaker Mohamed Sheikh Osman Jawari.

Somalia’s government has been trying to encourage foreign businesses partnerships after the ouster of Islamist militants from the capital as foreign entities  seemed poised to exploit the market’s growth at backdrop of security concerns.

According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Somalia, as of 2012 the country had some of the lowest development indicators in the world, and a “strikingly low”Human Development Index (HDI) value of 0.285.

This would rank the impoverished horn of Africa amongst the lowest in the world as result of “inequalities across different social groups, a major driver of conflict, have been widening”.

Foreign companies have pulled out from  Somalia following state institutions collapses and warlords overthrew the central government in 1991 and “most of the economic and social infrastructure and assets were destroyed”.

Local private companies have since filled the void, creating thousands of jobs and helped the country to survive despite serious challenges including civil war and chaos.