Business is not booming

Unsurprisingly, South Sudan is struggling to find investors to kick start its fragile economy. Barney Jopson reports here for the Financial Times on Riek Machar’s rather unsuccessful attempt to woo American investors in New York in July last year. But the North is also struggling. Rumours that the US has pulled out of an investors’ conference for Sudan were raised in a State Department press briefing yesterday in Washington after being all but confirmed by Reuters.

Both countries will struggle to make any economic progress as long as the dispute over oil transit fees continues. Just yesterday Sudan announced it would lower its transit fees from $36 to $32.20, but that is still some way away from the $1 per barrel the South is offering. Negotiations in Ethiopia have reached deadlock and South Sudan’s has kept its oil production on hold. Both countries urgently need oil revenue, so Sudan should wield the power arising from its monopoly of the supply of oil transportation with greater care in the future.