• GDP: US$1.9 billion (2005).
• Main exports: Fish and fish products, and iron ore.
• Main imports: Food, consumer goods, machinery and equipment, and petroleum products.
• Main trade partners: Japan, France, Spain, Germany, The Netherlands and USA.

Successive years of drought and encroaching desert have consumed large areas of Mauritania’s cultivable land. More than half the population is engaged in subsistence agriculture, producing vegetables, millet, rice and dates, and rearing livestock, mostly in the Senegal River valley. The quantities produced are insufficient to meet domestic needs and Mauritania relies on imports of basic foodstuffs.

Fishing is essential both to domestic needs and the country’s export income, also for the revenue from licences granted to foreign fleets from Korea, Japan and Russia.

Mining is Mauritania’s principal industry: the main products are iron ore (output of which has been cut due to falling demand), gypsum and gold. There are plans to exploit the country’s copper reserves, which were long thought uneconomic, as well as newly located diamond deposits. Offshore drilling for oil and gas fields has recently begun.

Nonetheless, Mauritania’s financial position remains precarious and it will remain an exceptionally poor country for the foreseeable future and a major aid recipient, with other Arab countries as the main donors. The economy grew by 5.4% in 2005; inflation was 17.1% in the same year. The IMF and World Bank have given some economic support in exchange for the standard economic reform programme.

Mauritania is a member of the Union of the Arab Maghreb. It was also a member of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) until its withdrawal from the organisation in 2000.

Use forms of address as for France, eg ‘Monsieur le Directeur’. It is essential that businesspeople have a sound knowledge of French, as very few executives speak English.

Office hours: Sun-Thurs 0800-1500.

Chambre de Commerce, d’Agriculture, d’Elevage, d’Industrie et des Mines de Mauritanie
Avenue de la Republique, BP 215, Nouakchott, Mauritania
Tel: 252 214.