Côte D'ivoire - Infrastructure, power, and communications

By 1996, Côte d'Ivoire had a fairly well-developed network of 50,400 kilometers (31,317 miles) of roads, of which 4,889 kilometers (3,038 miles) were paved; about 6,000 kilometers (3,728 miles) were primary roads; and 7,000 kilometers (4,350 miles) are secondary roads. A fall in railway traffic has increased the burden on the road network. The government plans to develop the system further, for instance, by extending the country's main highway from Abidjan to Yamoussoukro and to Grand-Bassam, southwest of Abidjan.

The only railway line in Côte d'Ivoire was built by the French, and it links Abidjan with Ouagadougou, the capital city of neighboring Burkina Faso. The Ivorian side is 660 kilometers (410 miles) of meter gauge railway. The rail company, Societe Ivoirienne des Chemins

Communications
Country	Newspapers	Radios	TV Sets a	Cable subscribers a	Mobile Phones a	Fax Machines a	Personal Computers a	Internet Hosts b	Internet Users b
	1996	1997	1998	1998	1998	1998	1998	1999	1999
Côte d'Ivoire	17	164	70	0.0	6	N/A	3.6	0.25	20
United States	215	2,146	847	244.3	256	78.4	458.6	1,508.77	74,100
Nigeria	24	223	66	N/A	0	N/A	5.7	0.00	100
Ghana	14	238	99	N/A	1	N/A	1.6	0.06	20
a Data are from International Telecommunication Union, World Telecommunication Development Report 1999and are per 1,000 people.
b Data are from the Internet Software Consortium ( http://www.isc.org ) and are per 10,000 people.
SOURCE : World Bank. World Development Indicators 2000.

de Fer (Ivory Society of Railroads, SICF), saw the number of passengers decline by 75 percent to about 760,000 by 1993, owing in part to the poor condition of the rolling stock.

There are 980 kilometers (609 miles) of navigable rivers and canals, as well as numerous coastal lagoons. There are also 4 major ports: Abidjan, Aboisso, Dabou, and San-Pedro. The Port Autonome d'Abidjan (PAA) is the busiest in Francophone West Africa (the former French colonies in West Africa, in which there is still a legacy of French civil law and language) and earns revenue from transit traffic to and from the country's land-locked neighbors, particularly Burkina Faso and Mali. Petroleum products account for approximately 40 percent of its tonnage. Côte d'Ivoire's second largest port, San Pedro, handles smaller volumes of timber and cocoa.

In 1999, there were an estimated 36 airports in the country, 7 of which had paved runways. Côte d'Ivoire has an important stake in the multinational Air Afrique, which provides most international connections.

Although an estimated 64 percent of the country's electricity is generated from hydroelectric plants, gas power stations are becoming more important with fossil fuels constituting 36 percent of the country's electric energy production. Total electric energy production in 1998 was estimated to be 3.36 billion kilowatt hours (kWh) against a consumption demand of 3.2 billion kWh. Oil is refined for domestic use but is also exported to the region, including to Nigeria where a dismal downstream oil industry has led to persistent oil shortages.

There were 182,000 telephone land lines and more than 60,000 mobile cellular phones in use in 1998. By June 1999 the telephone system was well-developed by African standards but operating far below capacity. Domestic needs are met by land lines and microwave radio relays, 90 percent of which are digitalized. Two Intelsat satellite earth stations and 2 coaxial submarine cables serve international demand. The government sold 51 percent of the national telecommunications company, CITelcom, to France Telecom in 1997, which renamed the company Côte d'Ivoire Telecom. At the time of privatization, CI-Telecom was operating 120,000 lines, but the government intended to have 400,000 lines in use by 2002. The long waiting list has enabled many Ivorian companies to benefit from the scramble for market share after liberalization of the industry.

Radiodiffusion-Television Ivorienne (Ivorian Radio Broadcasting-Television, RTI) is a government-owned corporation but is in most respects independent. It is partly funded by advertising and operates 2 television channels and a national radio service, broadcasting in French and local languages. Radio Espoir is owned and operated by the Roman Catholic Church. In 1999 there were a total of 2 AM, 8 FM and 3 shortwave stations, as well as 14 television stations. In 1997 there were 900,000 television sets.

While there were a number of new publications as a consequence of the 1990 political liberalization, many disappeared during Konan Bedie's tenure, and at least 20 journalists have been jailed since 1994. Nonetheless, there remains a healthy opposition press which includes the daily Notre Voie and Nouvel Horizon , owned by the pro-FPI Nouvel Horizon media group. This alternative coverage provides a counterweight to the dominance of the pro-government press, mainly the daily Fraternite Matin founded in 1964 and its evening sister paper, Ivoire Soir , with a circulation of about 50,000 and 40,000 respectively.