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      • Firms jostle for slice of south Sudan's $4.5 billion aid pie

Firms jostle for slice of south Sudan's $4.5 billion aid pie

Businesses seeking a slice of a $4.5-billion aid pledge for southern Sudan thronged an investment conference hosted by former rebels on Thursday, hoping for deals in everything from tea to telecoms.

Companies from Africa and beyond are poised to exploit a surge in demand in sectors as diverse as construction, banking and farming offered by the end of a 21-year civil war in January that had barred all but the hardiest entrepreneurs.

"It's a scramble for southern Sudan," said Paul Enright, a consultant with Nairobi-based Risk Management Initiatives, one of hundreds of delegates who attended the start of the two-day conference in the capital of neighbouring Kenya.

"There's been talk of billions of dollars of deals and I think everybody wants to see if they can get a slice of it," he said on the sidelines of the meeting.

Former rebels who will run southern Sudan under the terms of the January peace deal are desperate to attract foreign capital needed to rebuild a region deprived of roads, water and power by successive cycles of conflict since independence in 1956.

Seeking to soothe fears of insecurity in an area awash with guns, as well as concerns over everything from the legal framework to the stability of the new government, the former guerrillas are keen to present a business-friendly image.

"Economic growth cannot happen without the participation of the private sector," Riak Machar, one of southern rebel leader John Garang's deputies, told the conference. "Whenever we meet businesses we tell them: 'come to Sudan, lets work together'."

Donors meeting in Oslo last month pledged $4.5 billion for 2005-07 to fund projects in the south following the peace deal between rebels and the Khartoum government, although a separate civil war in Sudan's western Darfur region is still unresolved.

Southern Sudan has oilfields whose revenue is to be shared with the government under their peace deal, although the conference was attended mainly by firms in non-oil sectors.

Kenya, which hosted peace talks that led to January's agreement, is particularly keen to beat South African rivals in the race for opportunities in southern Sudan and aims to build a railway to connect its neighbour to its Mombasa port.

Sudan's former rebels also want investors to construct an oil pipeline to Mombasa that would allow them to export crude without relying on cooperation with the northern government.

BREADBASKET

From vast tracts of arable land and herds of cattle to crops like coffee, tea, cotton and wild vanilla, southern Sudan's leaders say there are ample resources to turn a region long beset by war-induced famine into a breadbasket for Africa.

Reviving farming would help employ the south's estimated six to 10 million inhabitants -- who may soon be joined by several million more returning refugees -- but many investors sensed more opportunities in contracts for donor-funded projects.

Cement makers and paint suppliers, satellite phone firms and borehole drillers in Kenya, east Africa's largest industrial base, are all hoping to cash in on the influx of funds

"We believe there's money to be made in Sudan," said Abraham Kiprotich, export officer for East Africa Portland Cement. "It involves risk, you take the current situation as it is."

Investors will face diverse challenges -- from dealing with a government composed of former fighters to the threat of warring militia -- but optimists say they should seize the day.

"I believe that you are a room full of entrepreneurs, you can dare the devil, you can dare take the risk," said Kenyan Planning Minister Peter Anyang' Nyongo. "Please don't ask for all the details to be there before you make your decision."

 

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