France seeks to re-establish business footprints in Ivory Coast

French companies are looking to re-establish themselves in Ivory Coast and the rest of Africa.

A delegation of a hundred French business leaders, who are members of the French Enterprise Movement (MEDEF) arrived in Abidjan on Monday in an effort to revitalize the presence of French companies in the West African country.

French enterprises lost a combined 17 percent of their market share in various sectors in a span of ten years.

The president of MEDEF, Pierre Gataz however wants French companies to increase their market share in countries such as Ivory Coast where he says there is a big local consumer appetite.

“You shouldn’t be there for six months, you have to be there for ten, twenty and next fifty years,” said Pierre Gataz, MEDEF’s president.

The group is specifically targeting the agro energy, new technologies and construction industries.