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Resources and infrastructure: Transport, communications and the Internet
(Country Profile Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Poor infrastructure affectstrade
Traditionally, few international shipping lines serving East Africa have called at Comoros. This is partly because of the small size of the local market, and partly because the coral reefs surrounding the islands make them inaccessible to large vessels. In late 2005, however, the Anjouanese authorities signed an agreement with a Danish shipping firm, Maersk, which is designed to transform Anjouan into a regional transshipment site. Under this deal, Maersk-operated container ships en route from Port Reunion to Dubai call at Mutsamudu every fortnight.
In late 2006 a consortium comprising United Arab Emirates-based Gulftainer, which operates container terminals at Sharjah and Khor Fakkan, and Al Marwan General Contracting, was awarded a 15-year contract to operate, manage and upgrade the ports of Moroni and Mutsamudu. This did not prove popular with the government of Grand Comore, which took the matter to the Constitutional Court arguing that the Union administration had concluded the contract unilaterally (in contravention of the constitution), while terminating the previous agreement with the French firm, Comaco. The Constitutional Court agreed, ruling that the Union administration should take measures for the contract to comply with legislation and the issue remains unresolved.
Port operations are improving at Moroni
Nonetheless, the Gulftainer venture, named Gulf-Com, has already had an impact on cargo-handling at Moroni, introducing 24-hour operations, seven days a week, at no extra cost to shipping lines or companies. The introduction of more flexible working hours has caused tensions with port workers, but it is leading to cuts in freight rates as ships being unloaded no longer spend so long in the port. Gulf-Com is now supplying new transport equipment, in the form of two 22 metre barges capable of carrying 120 tonnes of cargo and a new tugboat; these should facilitate movement of cargo from ships that have to moor well outside the port. Longer-term plans include extending the quay length from the current 200 metres to 800 metres, installing fixed gantry cranes to handle increased container volume, enlarging the cargo-storage area and building warehousing facilities with the overall aim of boosting annual container throughput from 100,000 twenty-foot equivalent container units (TEUs) to 500,000 TEUs by 2011. This depends on satisfactory resolution of the legal disputes over Gulftainer's contract.
International air links are slowly grow
The country's main international gateway is Prince Said Ibrahim Airport on Grande Comore, which is undergoing substantial renovation work carried out by a French firm, Coris. There are also domestic airports on Anjouan (Ouani) and Moheli (Bandar el Salaam). The national carrier, Air Comore, operated inter-island links and services to regional destinations such as Zanzibar until it was crippled by a botched attempt at privatisation in 1995. Numerous attempts to relaunch the national airline have failed, and charter operators have sought to fill the gap in the market. However, there have been growing signs of interest in the sector, with private groups including Catovair (a subsidiary of the Mauritius-based Ireland Blyth group) and Sky Gate International holding talks on the creation of local airlines. More significantly, Kenya Airways plans to offer three flights a week to Comoros and Mayotte from November 2007, as part of its plans to transform Nairobi's Jomo Kenyatta International Airport into a hub for Indian Ocean islands.
Telecoms privatisation mooted
In 2004 the government announced that it was seeking a strategic investor for the state post and telecommunications company, Societe nationale des postes et telecommunications (SNPT), some seven years after parliament had passed a law authorising the liberalisation of the sector. In pursuit of this SNPT was restructured into two divisions, with postal operations carried out by the Societe nationale des postes comoriens (SNPC) and telecoms servicessubdivided into fixed-line and mobile unitsby Comores telecom (Comtel). The administration pledged to privatise Comtel by end-2005, but there have been delays in finding a foreign strategic investorunsurprisingly, given fears about political interference in the running of the telecoms service (any potential investor could face pressure to retain SNPT's workforce, for example) and the small size of the domestic market. In the interim, demand for mobile services has continued to rise. France-based Alcatel inaugurated a Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) system in late 2003, and the service has proved extremely popular, not least because waiting times for fixed lines remain extremely high, at more than six years, according to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).
In mid-2007, Comoros signed up to the East African Submarine Cable System (EASSy), a US$235m fibre-optic cable that will run from South Africa to Sudan via a number of waypoints. Services are due to start by September 2008, and are expected to boost capacity and connectivity right along the East African seaboard. In the process, EASSy should also lead to significant reductions in international call charges (intra-African calls currently tend to be routed through carriers in Europe or the US, substantially adding to their cost). Participation in EASSy offers obvious advantages, but Comtel will have to invest in its local network to gain the full benefits: in 2006, there were 21.2 fixed-line and 20.1 mobile phone subscribers per 1,000 inhabitants, according to ITU, as against 6.6 and 76.6 per 1,000 in Mali and 138 and 209.9 per 1,000 in Cape Verde.
The Internet
The SNPT is the sole Internet service provider. According to the UN's 2006 Information Economy Report, the number of Internet users rose from 2,500 in 2001 to 8,000 in 2004 and 20,000 in 2005. Clearly this is a substantial rise, but it is less than 5% of the Comorian population and Internet use is highly concentrated in the country's main cities. The government is seeking to improve these figures: the SNPT has pledged to increase Internet band width from 256 kbps to 1,048 kbps, although it has not announced a timeframe for this, and participation in the EASSy system should also improve bandwidth.
The media
Comoros has no national newspaper. The two leading newspapers are the semi-official Al Watwan (published on Grande Comore) and Le Kwezi (published on Mayotte); they are not available on the other two islands. The remainder of the press is also localised. Although several independent newspapers criticise the government, self-censorship is reportedly common. There is a national radio station, Radio Comoros, and RFO Mayotte is the local station for France's radio and television broadcasts for its overseas dependent territories. It broadcasts French and locally produced radio and television programmes, which can be received in parts of Comoros.
Five local private television stations operate without overt government interference, and the national television service, Television nationale de Comores (TNC) started broadcasting in 2006, using Chinese equipment and assisted by Canal France International (CFI). CFI provides 80% of TNC's programmes (including cartoons, films, documentaries, sports shows, entertainment programmes and a number of African series), while the new service also produces two 15-minute newscasts (in French and in Comorian) per day, as well as a half-hour debate show, Bangwe (meaning Speakers' Corner) several times a week. TNC currently broadcasts from 5.30 pm to 11pm daily. There are only 1.5 TV sets per 1,000 people, a similar level to Chan (1.0) and Tanzania (2.8)..
Copyright 2007 Economist Intelligence Unit
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