Construction of Senegal’s Digital City, Diamniadio Valley, Set To Commence By June, 2015
Senegal has emerged to be a consistently emerged to be one of Africa’s biggest spenders on ICT. Something that made it ranked position 12 in Africa by the 2014 ITU Index for countries with developed ICT. Senegal now wants to take its ICT ambitions a notch higher with the construction of a digital city dubbed, Diamniadio Valley.
Senegal Post and Telecoms Minister, Yaya A. Kane said that the feasibility studies of the project have already been carried out. The country is now negotiating with African Development Bank (AfDB) for funds to start the construction by the mid of this year. Kane said that the Senegalese government and the AfDB will sign a partnership agreement in one or two months’ time.
Kane reiterated the government’s commitment to seeing the project kick off by the first half of this year. AfDB is said to disburse $100 million of the $120 million budgeted for this project. The Diamniadio Valley is set to be constructed on 25 x 150 hectares of land. The project is expected to attract other investors keen on investing in West Africa countries.
Kane further revealed that an Asian delegation from the KT Corporation (formerly known as Korean Telecom, based in Seongnam, South Korea) held talks with government officials in Dakar, over the digital city project.
The Minister said, “We agreed with KT to work together on a number of projects and seek funding for those projects.”
