Why Liberia

Strategic gateway

Liberia is a member of the Economic Community of West African States and a signatory to the African Continental Free Trade Area. For a Canadian business that makes Liberia a point of entry to a regional market rather than a single national one.

English is the official language and the legal system derives from common law, so corporate filings, contracts and court procedure are broadly familiar to Canadian counsel. Liberia has held consecutive peaceful transfers of power since 2006.

Where the opportunities sit

Three sectors carry a published profile on this site. Each profile records who verified it and when, and says so plainly where a question is still open.

• Mining and minerals. Iron ore, gold and diamonds are the established export industries. The question Canadian operators raise most often is processing and downstream work rather than raw export. Read the mining profile.
• Agriculture and agro-processing. Rice, cocoa, coffee, rubber, oil palm and cassava, and the processing that turns any of them into a higher-value export. Read the agriculture profile.
• Renewable energy. Generation, solar and mini-grid supply, both for industrial users and for households not yet connected to a grid. Read the renewable energy profile.

This Office is asked regularly about infrastructure and construction, fisheries and the blue economy, tourism and hospitality, manufacturing, technology, healthcare and education. None of those carries a published profile yet. Tell us which one you are looking at and we will assemble what can be confirmed, and say plainly what cannot.

The workforce

Liberia has a young population, and the constraint most employers describe is not the supply of people but the supply of specific trades and technical skills. Employers who have built training into the first year of an operation report finding that easier to solve than importing it. If your project depends on a particular skill being available locally, ask us before you model it.

What to ask us to confirm

Two questions come up in nearly every first conversation. Both have answers that turn on your sector, your structure and the date you ask, and neither is a thing to take from a website — including this one.

• Whether any investment incentive or protection applies to your project. That is a determination for the National Investment Commission, not for this Office. Tell us what you are planning and we will put the question to them and send you the answer in writing.
• What market access your goods would have. Tariff treatment and preferential arrangements turn on the product, where it was made and where it is going. We will put the question to the National Investment Commission and the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, and come back to you with the answer and the source it came from.

Neither question is a formality and neither has a general answer. Getting them settled early is the single most useful thing this Office does for a project at the assessment stage.