Equatorial Guinea will invest 5,500 billion CFA francs ($12.26 billion) over five years in infrastructure programmes to diversify its economy away from its reliance on oil and gas, a government report said on Monday.
The ambitious blueprint includes plans for a refinery, new motorways to penetrate the country's heavily-forested interior, a new airport and hydroelectric power plant, a gas power station, hospitals and training facilities.
The plan was drawn up at a conference last week in the mainland city of Bata to chart the economic strategy of the Gulf of Guinea nation, which is sub-Saharan Africa's third largest oil producer pumping nearly 400,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day.
The discovery of large offshore oil fields in the mid-1990s catapulted Equatorial Guinea from one of Africa's poorest nations to one of its richest per capita, but the new-found wealth has yet to trickle down to its estimated 1 million inhabitants. Officials told Reuters on Monday that the land for the new plant has already been acquired and a tender would be launched soon for the building contract.
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