Idilinaa
VIP
Ethiopia raising minimum civil servant salary from $35 to $44 per month
- Thread starter Neptune
- Start date
I think its more that we heavily underestimate the economic power Somalis have becuase of how much our govts lack of services distorts things.
You have to rember that somalis are heavily present in Kenya and south Africa 2 of the largest African economies. And that nairbio which is the 11 largest but 6th richest city has been massively impacted in recent years by somali investment.
The fact we have such a large impact on the largest economies in Africa logically wouldn't make sense if our economic power was as small as it was on paper
ZBR
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Idilinaa
VIP
Exactly. You also forgot to mention Dubai/UAE. Somalis were the second biggest exporters/importers out of the ports, have a presence in real estate, finance, electronics, and other businesses, and have a large presence in the gold markets.
There, they even run multi-national corporations like MSG Group, which funnel money back into Somalia and fund development. They even hold subsidiaries in Somalia/Somaliland/Djibouti
Another example is SomGulf Real Estate. They have since moved their headquarters to Hargeisa, but they built a number of high-rise buildings in Gulf countries worth hundreds of millions.
I think a lot of businesses may have returned to Somalia/Somaliland in the past decade or so. It would be interesting to look into this further.
It’s the same in Kenya and South Africa, that you mentioned among others many hundreds of millions/billions in investments and capital generated abroad find their way back to Somalia, sometimes even through Somalis operating dual businesses, one in their home country and one abroad.
The community/private sector has a lot of wealth in Somalia; it’s the government that is poor in comparison. This is supported by the government’s own published stats, whilst it's most definitely an under-reporting of household consumption but it still shows the reality
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You know now that I think about it i remember hearing about a distant clan relative guy who owned multiple factories in somalia but had his headquarters in Dubai. It seems like this really was the common strategy for a lot of buisnessman. Although now its all changing as the country gets better and the uae decided to basically kicked out the somali buisness community after the farmajo incident
Idilinaa
VIP
They probably also do this to navigate international barriers, such as certifications and credibility requirements.
Take, for example, the Somali-owned company NeoBotanika, founded in 2014 by a diaspora returnee in Somaliland. The company not only exports frankincense and myrrh but also operates a distillation unit that employs locals, producing essential oils from these resins.
To sell distilled products internationally, a company must have accredited labs and certification infrastructure within Somaliland or Puntland which is a process that is both costly and time-consuming. Buyers require GC-MS (Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry) profiles for every batch of oil, making this a major bottleneck for producers.
Dr. Moktar Osman Guelleh addressed this challenge by acquiring certification through partnerships with UK entities and registering the company in the UK. This strategy guarantees international credibility while allowing production to continue in Somaliland.
This approach is similar to other Somali businessmen who moved their headquarters abroad during the civil war and later returned to set up operations in Somalia or Somaliland. Another example is the Omaar Group, now called Ominco Group.
Founded in 1975 in Somalia, Ominco began as a trading company and expanded into a large multinational conglomerate operating across multiple sectors
Our Businesses – Ominco Group LTD
ominco.com
Going back to what we talked about earlier it shows that if Somalis can have such an outsized business presence abroad and shape economies across the Middle East and Africa, the same logic applies domestically. The reality is that a huge amount of business activity takes place inside Somalia, but most people remain unaware of it. Factories, water systems, energy and other infrastructure projects are financed by Somali business people themselves often at the multi million dollar scale.
The diaspora functions more like foreign investors: alongside exports, they inject capital into the economy and invest across every sector. This has reshaped Somalia’s trade patterns to be more regional and independent.
Remember when i fed Chat a few months back a couple of papers and articles on Somali trade and finance to organize the information how it fits into the larger African landscape:
As you know, I’ve since learned even more on the domestic side, how local businesses and communities finance development directly, how they pool resources through cooperative models, and how commercial banks and microfinance institutions drive growth. There’s also far more domestic production than outsiders realize, and when factoring in income reports and living costs, Somalia’s true per capita earnings likely sit closer to $4,000.
So in reality, diaspora capital and domestic financing work as dual engines of growth.
This will all become more apparent to people real soon. I will play my role in communicating it but i believe all the public-private partnerships where the government leverages the wealth in the private sector for development will reshape Somalia. The problem until recently is that private sector expanded rapidly so local governments was unable to keep up with it but now they are increasingly tapping into that wealth that has accumulated over the decades and expanding their tax base as well through implementions.
Already 70% of all development projects in Puntland was self funded, donor funding or federal grants makes up 30%, self-funding is likely higher for Somaliland. This is not accounting most of the private sector funded projects just through taxation, with greater revenue at their disposal imagine how much more they can do. So 2025-2029 is going to be very transformative , people will have a hard time time hanging on to these false pre-conceptions of Somalis or Somalia. It will be an interesting sight to behold.
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10,000 Shillings is $18 USD. That’s at least $350 a month, Ethiopia can’t be that gaajo..
There is a lot of Kenyan teachers in Hargeisa, their salaries must be really competitive for them to come.
Idilinaa
VIP
350 a month is 4000 a year. It was no hyperbole when i said they could earn doing menial jobs in a single day in Somalia what they would earn in Ethiopia for a whole month.
They earn 15 dollars a month in 2018 and the minimum wage for the average Ethiopian workers is at 26$ dollars a month in 2020
The living wage is 144 dollars , meaning that's how much you need to earn to pay for living expenses.
The cost of decent standard of living for a whole family is higher at 238 USD
It really is gaajo or struggle because they can't earn enough to support living.
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Yep and things have gotten worse with moving away from a fixed exchange rate, their imports were cheap previously and now it’s adjusting to the actual market value although I think this will be beneficial in the long term.
When is this? Cuase somali shilling isn't used in bosaso anymore
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