Senegalese politicians have voted to scrap the nation’s Senate, or upper house, in order to save an estimated $15 million from the nation’s annual budget – that will go into a fund to help victims of recent deadly floods, reported the Associated Press on Thursday.
Senegalese President Macky Sall, who won a March 25 presidential election to end a 12-year rule by Abdoulaye Wade, has begun auditing several government institutions and programs suspected for misuse of public funds and reckless government spending, reported Bloomberg News on Saturday, in a move said to be directed at restoring investor confidence in West Africa’s second largest economy.
FOREIGN TRADE
Senegal has experienced both trade deficit as well as balance of payment deficit over years.
Major exportable items of the country are cotton, petroleum products, phosphates, and manufacturing goods. Its exports partners are India, Italy, Spain, France and Mali.
Important importable items of the country are capital goods, fuel, and food items. It imports from the countries such as US, UK, Nigeria, France and Brazil.
STRUCTURE OF THE ECONOMY
Services sector plays a significant role in the country’s economy by holding a major share in the total GDP followed by industrial sector.
Major agricultural products of the country are rice, cotton, vegetables, fish and poultry.
Important industries in the country are fertilizer, petroleum refining, agriculture and fish processing.
The following diagram shows various sectors as the percentage of total GDP in the country.
Senegal is a lower income country comes under the Sub Saharan African region as to the classification made by the World Bank on the basis of income and region for the year 2006.
The country has a total surface area of 196.7 thousands square kilometers as in the year 2004, with a forest area of 88,980.0 square kilometers.
Senegal Economy : DEMOGRAPHY AND SOCIAL INDICATORS
