This report offers a comprehensive overview of the situation in Sierra Leone focusing on the business perspective.
- The country is one of the least developed countries in the world
- In terms of the real GDP, both in total numbers and per capita, the values were in the smaller end in the region, with slightly higher annual growth rates
- Population increased by 2.2%, which is slower than regional average, and amounted to a little over 7.7 million inhabitants in 2018
- Sierra Leone had a fiscal deficit of -19.4% of GDP has been increasing over the past few years while unemployment rate was lower than in the general region at 4.5% and has been steady
- Household consumption expenditure in Sierra Leone was lower than in the region, but the amount of disposable income grew fastest between 2015 and 2016 at 17%
- It takes 11 days to start a business in Sierra Leone compared to 5.6 days in the U.S., which is relatively quick when considering the general state of development in the country
- There was a decline in the emergence of new businesses, which might be due to the relatively high levels of labor market and operational risks
- Sierra Leone’s merchandise exports, consisting mainly of agricultural products, amounted to US$0.8 billion and commercial services exports to US$0.27 billion in 2017
- The export trade flow for commercial services was close to five times as high as in 2010
- After several years of decline in inward FDI, the investments amounted to $0.6 billion in 2017
- eCommerce revenues are expected grow by 11.2% annually to reach 26 million in 2023. With 12.3% of the population using the internet, there's still a lot of unlocked potential in the country for this market
- Sierra Leone is a semi-democracy and poses relatively high levels of political risks as rule of law and regulatory quality are low, control of corruption rather weak, and there's moderate risks from political instability and threat of violence or terrorism in global comparison
