Somaliland Opportunities
a stable Horn of Africa democracy
Until 1960 present day Somaliland /Puntland was a British Protectorate, present day Somalia was an Italian Protectorate. In 1960 the three regions accepted independence and formed one country, the Republic of Somalia.
Each of the three regions maintained their own autonomy within Somalia, periodically accepting aid from communist and also capitalist countries.
During the 1980’s a civil war broke out and the former British areas were carpet bombed by the Italian area forces who had air power which was used to devastating effect, in fact to this day the former British areas lack infrastructure, the regions are basically destitute.
In 1991 a cease fire was signed, and the former British regions declared themselves to be independent republic as Somaliland, although still today the UN and OAU consider them to be autonomous regions of Somalia.
For the past 30 years the Somaliland region has been a parliamentary democracy, one of very few in Africa where not only are elections peaceful, but where the losing side gracefully accepts defeat and steps aside.
Somaliland is now looking to both opening up its mineral resources, while using its strategic position on the gulf of Aden to seek closer ties with USA & UK, especially in view of recent and ongoing geo-political issues, not least the European conflict and the perception of conflict starting in SE Asia, for instance between China and Taiwan.
The USA have defined the area as potential investment hub, not least as the region requires major infrastructural investment, but also as the region has inherent raw materials which can not only be utilized in the establishment of infrastructure but via exports can also provide the funds to help pay for the infrastructure, as opposed to being an incoming aid basket case. The region govt wishes to prove itself as a sustainable diverse and strong economy.
The USA is encouraging investment and is politically supportive of investment being made by private enterprise, recent ventures such as Hyundai in Automotive /Heavy Equipment Distributorship JV and Taiwan in Oil are established.
Basically, Somaliland has never previously been an industrialised region /country, the economy having been based primarily on agriculture and fisheries. The fact of the matter is prior investigations by British & Bulgarian geological surveys illustrated that the region has a wide range of metal containing mineral ore deposits, including beryllium, copper, cobalt, coltan ( columbo tantalite ), gold, iron, lithium, manganese, molybdenum, nickel, tin and tungsten.
Hydrocarbons are also present. The prior surveys took place in colonial and soviet communist eras, when demand and /or values of certain metals were deemed insignificant /unjustifiable of in-depth assessment.
Our company Kerilee Investments (KI) has spent the past 10 years investigating various areas in order to define suitable sustainable deposits to justify long term investment in exploration and exploitation. We have defined areas of coltan, copper, gold, iron, manganese & tin which we believe meet our bold but informed investment criteria, though we acknowledge our boldness may be deemed unacceptable to cautious investors. KI are well connected politically both locally, regionally and nationally via anglo somalilanders who have family resident in both UK and also their original home country region.
We are seeking to invite long term offtake partners and /or investors to join us in development of deposits, commencing with manganese project in Laasa Surad area of Erigaavo region, which we consider has the potential to be a world-class low-cost resource which could compete with Antipodes, Gabon & South Africa.
Additionally, our concession area is ocean side and in a relatively remote, sparsely populated area, which means we have the potential to also develop agriculture and fisheries to complement the mineral exploitation. The local population are united in their support of the project via a joint venture which incorporates corporate social responsibility to mutual benefit, with 40% of the shareholding held by local interests.
Brian E Beckett CEO, Kerilee Investments