Senegal Looks to Italian Industrial Expertise to Transform Traditional Know-How
Senegal is seeking to replicate Italy’s industrial blueprint to better convert its traditional crafts and domestic production into scalable economic solutions. Bakary Séga Bathily, the director general of the Agence nationale chargée de la promotion des investissements, outlined the strategy Thursday in Dakar, pointing to bilateral cooperation as a vehicle for structural economic growth.
The push for industrialization coincides with a visit from an Italian economic mission comprising approximately thirty enterprises spanning diverse sectors, including civil engineering. The delegation’s arrival in Dakar was coordinated by the Italian Trade Agency (ICE) office alongside the Embassy of Italy in Senegal, with the explicit aim of strengthening cooperation and stimulating investments between the two countries.
Building on Decades of Bilateral Trade and Local Presence
Italian enterprises are hardly newcomers to the Senegalese market. Over the past several decades, firms from Italy have established deep roots across multiple pillars of the West African nation’s economy. Bathily noted during the discussions that Italian operations already span agriculture, fishing, aviculture, construction materials, recycling, and industry.
Economic exchanges between the two countries have accelerated significantly in recent years. Data provided by the director general of the APIX indicates that the total volume of bilateral trade reached $426 million USD—roughly 250 billion CFA francs—in 2024. That figure represents a year-over-year surge of more than 50%.
Targeting Food Sovereignty and Strategic Sectors
The current bilateral push aims to channel this growing commercial momentum directly into national development priorities, particularly food security. Bathily emphasized that Senegal presents foreign investors with a market in transformation, resources, territories to develop, a “strategic position in West Africa” and a political will to accelerate productive transformation.
“Italy knows how to appropriate a technology, adapt it to a market and build a profitable activity around it,” Bathily observed, suggesting local entrepreneurs should adopt a similar methodology. He stressed the importance of converting bilateral complementarity into concrete business ventures, particularly within agriculture, where achieving national food sovereignty remains a core strategic objective for Senegal.
Michele Tommasi, the ambassador of Italy to Senegal, says he wishes for the bilateral relationship to highlight perspectives for investment and cooperation between the enterprises of the two countries.
