Somalia National Transformation Plan (NTP) 2025-2029

[Idilinaa]

Also @Thegoodshepherd another thing to point out aside from the fact that foreign currency comes into the country through trade , import/export and cross border logistics by transnational Somali businesses and Somali businesses who repatriate profit from abroad.

Use your common sense a little. How are Somalis paying for imports to begin with? You need capital, it doesn't matter if it comes in dollar or another currency. So you are only contradicting yourself. You simply cannot have high consumer spending that exceeds over 100% of the supposed claimed GDP without having money.

Poor African country's actually export more than they import, because they cannot pay for goods coming from abroad, so what their import is tiny.
View attachment 372734
View attachment 372733


Another thing worth mentioning is how i also pointed out in another thread that trade stats like exports/imports is distorted by Somali businesses engaging in transnational practices:

I covered it in that thread i linked: There is actually a lot of industrial development/production going on, and Somalis are incredibly super active in logistics , import/exports and multinational trade.

Ethiopia raising minimum civil servant salary from $35 to $44 per month

@Midas
Want to show this other report that points out how much they underestimate Somalia's economic activity in official statistics ''Estimates by development institutions suggest that cross-border trade is two to fives times higher than official statistics..., In effect , it is estimated that trading that is composed primarily of cross-border trading employs between 10 and 30 percent of the population"

The report also highlights several things that confirm what i said about the transnational practices of Somali businesses. , how most foreign currency and liquidity comes from trade and import/export and direct diaspora investment that then resycles throughout the economy through the financial systems.

It says "but FDI in the country has been driven primarily by diaspora and Somali transnational conglomerate investments.."

Imao they don't have number for the transnational conglomerates but they understand it to be large, i can bet you it's many billions from some figures i have seen.

It also talks about how Somalia is integrated into the economies of Gulf states, Turkey and the wider East African region.

I'll break it down what it said in another place , although the report makes a lot of unfounded assertions and baseless accusations about the supposed ''conglomerates dominating'' when they are in reality cooperatives and sometimes associations that engage in diversification through risk sharing and cross investment. They also merge to pool their resources/capital together . They are not market captures or oligopolies they are not linked to clan or directly to political elites but are community driven , their stake holders are literally local communities, they operate cross regionally with branch networks and thats why they reinvest their liquidity into development, economic growth and finance and they support SMES(Small Medium Businesses). It actually took them many years, trails & tribulations and innovation to scale to that level.

A lot of the strategies that Somalis business people undertook was to maneuver around the fact that due to Somalia's Political international reputation not much FDI or direct trade engagement happens from other countries or foreigners because of it. So they often have to operate in parellel fashion by registering abroad and home and have to pool local and diaspora capital in the absence of state support.

Luckily there is a study on this by a Somali author that i will use to clarify this that puts things into context. Also in the report they make reductive claims that the diaspora mostly invest in cafes, land or shops but i have actual direct figures from government publication in Somaliland and Somalia and also by GEEL(which works closely with agricultural investors) that show they sunk hundreds of millions into industrial/manufacturing , energy, water supply, housing/infrastructure and agricultural sectors of Somalia and boosted economic growth. The industry & commerce SL ministers said the creation of an industrial sector is diaspora driven.

Diaspora and locals citizens also attempted to create many SMES to boost employment opportunities which has been successful because those ventures typically require lower entry and lower start up capital so they proliferate and now there numerous of them that contribute to economic development.

That survey i showed earlier shows how diaspora investments is diversified and distributed to different sectors but you can see that most is directed at addressing real needs:

Here is a chart: . And they say something that is key "Note this question asked specifically about investments and not remittances. Thus it is assumed that individuals responses indicate sectoral prefrences that are tied to investments and not funds sent to families as part of a remittances obligations"

What i find funny is that they underestimate Somalia's economic output which they later come back to rescind or contradict because they lack reliable estimates/data, so they form these weird rationals and narratives to frame things in an attempt to make sense of it. They also apply their own cultural understandings of how their own western societies work to explain how Somalia's economy work much like some misguided Somali journalists i noticed tend to do as well. It's easy to show how they are wrong and you can plug holes in it.

 

[Midas]

@Midas
Want to show this other report that points out how much they underestimate Somalia's economic activity in official statistics ''Estimates by development institutions suggest that cross-border trade is two to fives times higher than official statistics..., In effect , it is estimated that trading that is composed primarily of cross-border trading employs between 10 and 30 percent of the population"
View attachment 372775


The report also highlights several things that confirm what i said about the transnational practices of Somali businesses. , how most foreign currency and liquidity comes from trade and import/export and direct diaspora investment that then resycles throughout the economy through the financial systems.

It says "but FDI in the country has been driven primarily by diaspora and Somali transnational conglomerate investments.."
View attachment 372777

Imao they don't have number for the transnational conglomerates but they understand it to be large, i can bet you it's many billions from some figures i have seen.
View attachment 372778

It also talks about how Somalia is integrated into the economies of Gulf states, Turkey and the wider East African region.

I'll break it down what it said in another place , although the report makes a lot of unfounded assertions and baseless accusations about the supposed ''conglomerates dominating'' when they are in reality cooperatives and sometimes associations that engage in diversification through risk sharing and cross investment. They also merge to pool their resources/capital together . They are not market captures or oligopolies they are not linked to clan or directly to political elites but are community driven , their stake holders are literally local communities, they operate cross regionally with branch networks and thats why they reinvest their liquidity into development, economic growth and finance and they support SMES(Small Medium Businesses). It actually took them many years, trails & tribulations and innovation to scale to that level.

A lot of the strategies that Somalis business people undertook was to maneuver around the fact that due to Somalia's Political international reputation not much FDI or direct trade engagement happens from other countries or foreigners because of it. So they often have to operate in parellel fashion by registering abroad and home and have to pool local and diaspora capital in the absence of state support.

Luckily there is a study on this by a Somali author that i will use to clarify this that puts things into context. Also in the report they make reductive claims that the diaspora mostly invest in cafes, land or shops but i have actual direct figures from government publication in Somaliland and Somalia and also by GEEL(which works closely with agricultural investors) that show they sunk hundreds of millions into industrial/manufacturing , energy, water supply, housing/infrastructure and agricultural sectors of Somalia and boosted economic growth. The industry & commerce SL ministers said the creation of an industrial sector is diaspora driven.
View attachment 372783
View attachment 372784
View attachment 372782

Diaspora and locals citizens also attempted to create many SMES to boost employment opportunities which has been successful because those ventures typically require lower entry and lower start up capital so they proliferate and now there numerous of them that contribute to economic development.
View attachment 372781

That survey i showed earlier shows how diaspora investments is diversified and distributed to different sectors but you can see that most is directed at addressing real needs:
View attachment 372780

Here is a chart: . And they say something that is key "Note this question asked specifically about investments and not remittances. Thus it is assumed that individuals responses indicate sectoral prefrences that are tied to investments and not funds sent to families as part of a remittances obligations"
View attachment 372785


What i find funny is that they underestimate Somalia's economic output which they later come back to rescind or contradict because they lack reliable estimates/data, so they form these weird rationals and narratives to frame things in an attempt to make sense of it. They also apply their own cultural understandings of how their own western societies work to explain how Somalia's economy work much like some misguided Somali journalists i noticed tend to do as well. It's easy to show how they are wrong and you can plug holes in it.

The rationalizations are so funny because it reminds of the way somali history is presented where the actual archeological evdince will be contradicted just so it can fit into this narrative of somali nomads who owned nothing and built nothing and were subordinate to ethiopia.

Thinks are definitely improving with data collection though. The govt was essentially not collecting data and publishing reports before the pandemic.

But now espcially in the last 2-3 years we've begun to come out with all sorts of stuff. Eventually we'll proably have an accurate picture of the economy in the next 3-5 years.

 

[nagnool00]

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[Idilinaa]

The rationalizations are so funny because it reminds of the way somali history is presented where the actual archeological evdince will be contradicted just so it can fit into this narrative of somali nomads who owned nothing and built nothing and were subordinate to ethiopia.

Imagine being subordinate to Ethiopia, which unironically never built a city, whose people were isolated, landlocked mountain peasants living in huts under crushing poverty, with a nomadic king moving around in tents, and whose entire economy was based on plundering the wealth of others including their more affluent, trade-urban Somali neighbors only to be slaughtered en masse in retaliation.

Why? Because an industry-, merchant-, and trade-based society with livestock as its economic engine is less relatable and less understandable to Western observers than a feudal, agrarian society since they themselves were historically feudal and agrarian.

So, since Somali society does not operate within their conventions, they create strange, biased projections and narratives about it

Thinks are definitely improving with data collection though. The govt was essentially not collecting data and publishing reports before the pandemic.

View attachment 372794

But now espcially in the last 2-3 years we've begun to come out with all sorts of stuff. Eventually we'll proably have an accurate picture of the economy in the next 3-5 years.
View attachment 372795

They are just now attempting to accurately track living costs and consumer prices , when we have beat them to it, lmaao.

Somali's GDP per Capita is false

Does anyone really believe this ? According to these stats the average Somali is poorer than Liberians, Sierra Leoneans, Gambians, Chadians and lives with just 64$ a day which literally any Somali knows is just impossible, let me give a few examples : This video below showcases the average...

www.somalispot.com

Yup i pointed this out in that thread that they are improving data collection, that's why i remain hopeful that we will get an accurate economic picture real soon:

@Midas @Barkhadle1520

I just finished going through the latest "National Transformation Plan (NTP) 2025-2029 Report", and I was pleasantly surprised to see that many of our ideas and criticisms have actually been acknowledged.

They explicitly recognize the data gaps, outdated fragementary data that we’ve often pointed out. That’s really encouraging because it means we may finally start getting reliable figures on Somalia’s economy and real GDP, something long overdue.

They also acknowledge that the private sector needs stronger public sector support.

 

[Idilinaa]

That survey i showed earlier shows how diaspora investments is diversified and distributed to different sectors but you can see that most is directed at addressing real needs:

Here is a chart: . And they say something that is key "Note this question asked specifically about investments and not remittances. Thus it is assumed that individuals responses indicate sectoral prefrences that are tied to investments and not funds sent to families as part of a remittances obligations"

Another point I want to make, @Midas . While official economic data for Somalia is often limited and not always fully accurate, newer surveys paint a clearer picture of the country’s real progress.


Diaspora contributions and transnational Somali conglomerates have played a key role in driving investment across multiple sectors. Today, 90% of Somalis across towns live in improved housing. Among youth aged 15–30 who make up 75% of the population literacy stands at around 70%. Access to electricity ranges between 60–80%, clean water reaches about 80% of the population, and the majority now have access to healthcare. These investments have also fueled employment by providing start-up capital for small and medium enterprises.


The agricultural sector, which has received the bulk of investment, has seen a strong revival despite setbacks from climate disasters between 2021–2023. Investors have rehabilitated irrigation channels, established farming cooperatives, developed crop processing and packaging facilities, introduced solar-powered irrigation, and set up private seed companies supplying varieties suited to Somali soil. They’ve also founded agricultural research labs, expanded universities, and strengthened market mechanisms.


On the industrial side, hundreds of factories and several large-scale plants have been launched nationwide. According to the 2023 census, Somalia now has 4,517 manufacturing establishments.


Overall, it is a genuine success story. Looking at where Somalia stood just over a decade ago, the scale of transformation is remarkable yet too often, that retrospective perspective is overlooked.

 

[Midas]

Another point I want to make, @Midas . While official economic data for Somalia is often limited and not always fully accurate, newer surveys paint a clearer picture of the country’s real progress.


Diaspora contributions and transnational Somali conglomerates have played a key role in driving investment across multiple sectors. Today, 90% of Somalis across towns live in improved housing. Among youth aged 15–30 who make up 75% of the population literacy stands at around 70%. Access to electricity ranges between 60–80%, clean water reaches about 80% of the population, and the majority now have access to healthcare. These investments have also fueled employment by providing start-up capital for small and medium enterprises.


The agricultural sector, which has received the bulk of investment, has seen a strong revival despite setbacks from climate disasters between 2021–2023. Investors have rehabilitated irrigation channels, established farming cooperatives, developed crop processing and packaging facilities, introduced solar-powered irrigation, and set up private seed companies supplying varieties suited to Somali soil. They’ve also founded agricultural research labs, expanded universities, and strengthened market mechanisms.


On the industrial side, hundreds of factories and several large-scale plants have been launched nationwide. According to the 2023 census, Somalia now has 4,517 manufacturing establishments.


Overall, it is a genuine success story. Looking at where Somalia stood just over a decade ago, the scale of transformation is remarkable yet too often, that retrospective perspective is overlooked.

So it seems like the mix 2010s was the critical turning point ? You know that makes a lot of sense since the mobile money transactions where all you had to do was type in a number is something that i think was introduced around 2010 .

I dont know if it's connected but its intresting that the mid 2010s was also around when the diaspora started to suddenly go back to somalia a lot more. I think the pivotal year was somewhere around 2016 ? After that it just seemed like everybody was talking about going back for a visit. Then post pandemic it seems like it reached a whole new level with tiktok making somalia more legible for the diaspora born.

 

[Idilinaa]

So it seems like the mix 2010s was the critical turning point ? You know that makes a lot of sense since the mobile money transactions where all you had to do was type in a number is something that i think was introduced around 2010 .

I dont know if it's connected but its intresting that the mid 2010s was also around when the diaspora started to suddenly go back to somalia a lot more. I think the pivotal year was somewhere around 2016 ? After that it just seemed like everybody was talking about going back for a visit. Then post pandemic it seems like it reached a whole new level with tiktok making somalia more legible for the diaspora born.

The economic recovery in Somalia actually began in the early 2000s, believe it or not. Many people assume that mobile money, telecom expansion, and connectivity are recent phenomena.

Somalia’s civil war hides steady growth of Internet Services

Despite continuing unrest, Somalia has taken the first tentative steps towards establishing a national government and AU peacekeepers have begun to arrive.

www.hiiraan.com

During this period, there was even a mini housing construction boom, with investments flowing in. The diaspora also began returning in larger numbers, first in the North and later gradually in the South during the early 2000s.

However, the US-backed Ethiopian invasion and the international community’s interventions & attacks between 2007–2009 from maritime blockades, to restrictions on financial and trade systems, derailed progress, reversing economic growth and undermining security, particularly in the South.

Recovery resumed around 2012 with the establishment of the new transitional government. That year can be seen as a turning point, after which Somalia has experienced continued economic growth and development.

Much of the post-2012 transformation has been overshadowed by inaccurate or outdated economic data, which forces observers to ignore observable realities. The humanitarian focus, outdated assumptions about instability, and fixation on political theatrics have contributed to persistent misconceptions. In reality, Somalia is not in a civil war; its regions compete economically and politically, driving a development race, and the country maintains one of the lowest homicide rates in the world.

As I mentioned privately to Shimbiris, this holds true:

I bring this up to show that Somali businesspeople and professionals generally don’t care about politics or clan alliances. They work across regions, across clans, and even across borders with a singular focus on progress and development.

This stands in stark contrast to the Somali discourse online, where the energy is spent maligning one another, tearing down political figures, and fueling pointless rivalries. People carry grudges that do nothing but weigh them down.

Meanwhile, there are Somalis out there organizing, building, and actually making things happen. And instead of contributing, too many choose to just sit online and talk. Some even convince themselves that this is “advocacy” but it isn’t. It’s empty noise.

 

[Idilinaa]

Recovery resumed around 2012 with the establishment of the new transitional government. That year can be seen as a turning point, after which Somalia has experienced continued economic growth and development.

Although the economic recovery resumed around 2012, it started to become the most visible in 2016:

These are observations from 2016.

He mentions fishieries at the end , the sectors exports grew by 400% between 2017 and 2022.
View attachment 371897

Between 2022–2025, Somalia has made even more aggressive investments: they’ve established tuna canning factories, fish processing facilities boat production facilities, jetties, fish markets, and solar-powered cold-chain infrastructure. And this is just one sector.

Somalia Fishing

Won’t be much left with all these sales and MOU

www.somalispot.com

 

[Idilinaa]

@Midas
Want to show this other report that points out how much they underestimate Somalia's economic activity in official statistics ''Estimates by development institutions suggest that cross-border trade is two to fives times higher than official statistics..., In effect , it is estimated that trading that is composed primarily of cross-border trading employs between 10 and 30 percent of the population"

@Midas @Barkhadle1520 @Zak12 @Neptune Lets reflect on what this means if official GDP doesn’t count most cross-border trade and it's in reality 2-5 times higher, then Somalia’s real economy is much larger than what gets reported in Govt/World Bank/IMF data and think also about what this implies if 10-30% of Somalis are employed in cross-border trade it means millions make money through commerce. This also shows the strength of Somali business networks that operate across borders into Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti, and the Gulf.

This is similar to what happened in Nigeria in 2014, when they “rebased” GDP to include informal/underreported sectors , overnight the economy looked 90% bigger.

Another thing that highlights how large the increased economic growth/trade has been is the air traffic coming into Somalia, which has made the airport congested because it was not originally built to handle that volume. If official numbers undercount trade and passenger flows, then the “unexpected” congestion at Mogadishu airport makes sense. What’s happening on the ground (more goods, more travelers, more business flows) is outpacing what the official books show.

So improving aviation infrastructure became a national priority

and the Aviation minister said she has received numerous requests from major airlines that wish to start flying into Mogadishu but are hampered by the congestion. They collected 3.4 billion investments from Somalis domestically and from Somali transnational business community to sink into development to transform the city to improve connectivity.

They already began investing 1 billion into the airport to launch constructions:

Somalia Launches Construction of New Mogadishu International Airport in Warsheekh - Somali Magazine

Facebook Twitter (X) Instagram Somali Magazine - People's Magazine On Sunday, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud pressed a ceremonial button that marked the official start of construction. He told the crowd that the project is a “big step forward” for a country that is rebuilding after decades of...

somalimagazine.so

This also supports what i said to @Hilmaam in the China thread how world class and advanced certain local Somali construction companies have become to be trusted with such complex high value projects. This will keep all the money in the economy , creates jobs for Somali engineers and technicians. It's creates a lot of skill building that can be transferred into other projects in the future.

The local job creation and economic growth will be immense, the airport development is domestically driven.

I can't imagine the explosion of economic growth this will create. This also shows the advantage of having a transnational business empire: it channels this massive trade surplus back into Somalia and provides a steady, continuous stream of investment and foreign currency to strengthen our reserves.

A transnational conglomerate or business network is a huge advantage because Somalia can eventually take the excess reserves from trade and corporate profits and invest them into a sovereign wealth fund. That would give Somalia financial independence, a buffer against shocks, and create real investment capacity at home.

With strong reserves and a sovereign wealth fund, Somalia could directly finance infrastructure, education and healthcare, and innovation avoiding dependence on foreign loans. Instead, Somalia would self-finance its own development, just as Singapore and South Korea did after building their corporate empires.

The Mogadishu Development Corporation is a step in exactly that direction much like Singapore’s Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC) and Temasek Holdings

 

[Idilinaa]

@Midas @Barkhadle1520 @Zak12 @Neptune Lets reflect on what this means if official GDP doesn’t count most cross-border trade and it's in reality 2-5 times higher, then Somalia’s real economy is much larger than what gets reported in Govt/World Bank/IMF data and think also about what this implies if 10-30% of Somalis are employed in cross-border trade it means millions make money through commerce. This also shows the strength of Somali business networks that operate across borders into Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti, and the Gulf.

This is similar to what happened in Nigeria in 2014, when they “rebased” GDP to include informal/underreported sectors , overnight the economy looked 90% bigger.

Huge potential once formalized. If Somalia improves infrastructure, stabilizes security, and brings some of this informal economy into the formal sector (banks, customs, taxation), then GDP could grow massively “on paper” without the real economy even changing much.

Investors and lenders would suddenly see Somalia as a ''much bigger market'' than they thought.

 

[Barkhadle1520]

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[Barkhadle1520]

What i find funny is that they underestimate Somalia's economic output which they later come back to rescind or contradict because they lack reliable estimates/data, so they form these weird rationals and narratives to frame things in an attempt to make sense of it. They also apply their own cultural understandings of how their own western societies work to explain how Somalia's economy work much like some misguided Somali journalists i noticed tend to do as well. It's easy to show how they are wrong and you can plug holes in it.

I hate when they do that, they always try to undermine it to make it make sense and match it with the fake GDP

 

[Barkhadle1520]

The rationalizations are so funny because it reminds of the way somali history is presented where the actual archeological evdince will be contradicted just so it can fit into this narrative of somali nomads who owned nothing and built nothing and were subordinate to ethiopia.

Thinks are definitely improving with data collection though. The govt was essentially not collecting data and publishing reports before the pandemic.

View attachment 372794

But now espcially in the last 2-3 years we've begun to come out with all sorts of stuff. Eventually we'll proably have an accurate picture of the economy in the next 3-5 years.
View attachment 372795

What do you think the reaction worldwide would be once people realize Somalia isn't even in the top 50 poorest countries per Capita, cant imagine how confusing that would be, it would take us from 11th poorest in the world to top 30 in Africa, even when I say it myself it still seems so impossible

India is top 50 with 2900 GDP capita

 

[Barkhadle1520]

Imagine being subordinate to Ethiopia, which unironically never built a city, whose people were isolated, landlocked mountain peasants living in huts under crushing poverty, with a nomadic king moving around in tents, and whose entire economy was based on plundering the wealth of others including their more affluent, trade-urban Somali neighbors only to be slaughtered en masse in retaliation.

Im pretty sure the Berbera fair was worth Ethiopia's annual gdp in 1900

 

[Midas]

What do you think the reaction worldwide would be once people realize Somalia isn't even in the top 50 poorest countries per Capita, cant imagine how confusing that would be, it would take us from 11th poorest in the world to top 30 in Africa, even when I say it myself it still seems so impossible

India is top 50 with 2900 GDP capita

View attachment 372944

Its gonna be disbelief at first and outright denial. Even now when some of those right wing guys were saying somalia will be successful. The biggest people speaking against that in the comments and quote tweets were other Africans and Indians

 

[Midas]

Im pretty sure the Berbera fair was worth Ethiopia's annual gdp in 1900

I love watching these ethiopian dudes on Twitter cope by bringing up some random baboon study as proof. When you can legitimately just make the logical deduction if berbera ans these other ports have been important for 2,000 years. Then they were likely important even further back.

 

[Midas]

Huge potential once formalized. If Somalia improves infrastructure, stabilizes security, and brings some of this informal economy into the formal sector (banks, customs, taxation), then GDP could grow massively “on paper” without the real economy even changing much.

Investors and lenders would suddenly see Somalia as a ''much bigger market'' than they thought.

I definitely think will see this in the next 5 years. But its funny how even somalis have no idea how much capital and assets somali buisnessman have becuase of how low-key they are.

 

[Barkhadle1520]

The biggest people speaking against that in the comments and quote tweets were other Africans and Indians

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[Idilinaa]

I hate when they do that, they always try to undermine it to make it make sense and match it with the fake GDP

That report I read literally said, ‘While official trade statistics severely underestimate trade in Somalia’ and then immediately launched into baseless gymnastics and unrelated accusations to downplay it, which shows incredible bias.

When I checked the footnotes to see what it was referring to, I found that a separate study had actually found Somalia’s cross-border trade to be 2–5 times higher than reported, and estimated it employs 10–30% of the total population.

That same study stated: '' As such cross border trade strengthens economic resilience, alleviates poverty , contributes to the urbanization of the country with a strengthened presence of cities as important centers of trade along strategic corridors. Such trade provides food security for border regions."

This shows that this so-called ‘invisible’ trade is driving real development the informal economy isn’t just survival-level; it’s stabilizing communities and actively building cities.

It also says:

It also made me realize something else:
Because Somali businesses operate transnationally based both at home and abroad it likely means our trading partners are counting much of Somalia’s trade as their own. They don’t accurately track our side of the flows, so relying on their statistics creates a misleading picture where Somalia appears smaller on paper and our neighbors appear larger.

Then, that same report I referred to before correctly noted that the diaspora and transnational Somali conglomerates are the biggest sources of FDI into the country but it falsely claimed they mostly invest in cafés and shops.

When I checked the footnotes there too, the actual data showed that agriculture had the highest investment, followed by education, housing, fishing, energy, services, infrastructure, and healthcare. This clearly shows Somali investment is diversified and focused on long-term productive sectors.

Some examples in the study even showed Somalis investing purely to create jobs for locals back home , like one person giving $50–60K to a water company without expecting profit in return. Most Somali investors seem to prioritize community benefit and job creation over personal profit.

In a way, it’s like social investment:

This actually supports what I told @Shimbiris privately that Somali conglomerates and companies often act like social enterprises, and Somalia’s development is being driven by addressing real needs and benefiting the wider community

Dahabshiil: The maker of liquid gold - SomalilandCurrent.com

Dahabshiil, which is Somali for ‘the gold melter’, is a ‘rags to riches’ story of an African entrepreneur who lost everything during the Somali civil war. With nothing but a strong network of contacts, he set about rebuilding the company which two decades later is now the largest African-owned...

www.somalilandcurrent.com

Also this:

The Man Who Modernized Somalia’s Economy

As a boy, he loved school and herding animals. As a young man, he became a businessman; and as a businessman, through a personal will, he revolutionized an entire industry and became a national pil…

somaliainvestor.so

View attachment 371921
He said this after facing setbacks. When things are taken away from you through no fault of your own, it’s easy to carry resentment and blame but it’s better to let go and move forward.
View attachment 371923

In many ways, Somali businesses already function like social enterprises.

But now I know where people on this site got these ideas about hotels, cafés, and shops and it couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s honestly baffling how misunderstood and misrepresented Somalia is.


Many people are still relying on ancient data from 2009 or 2011, because newer official figures are scarce or incomplete. So when they see visible growth ( buildings, commerce, infrastructure) they can’t explain it with the outdated numbers they have, and they fill that gap with lazy assumptions like ‘it’s just cafés and shops.’

This creates a huge perception gap between what outsiders think Somalia’s economy is and what it actually looks like on the ground in the 2020s.

And regarding transnational conglomerate investment: the reports even admitted they had no real data on it, only that it must be large based on how fast those companies are growing. I can assure you it’s in the multiple billions, because just a few prominent local companies like Buruj, Hormuud, Beeco, Salaam Bank have already sunk billions into improving Somalia’s core infrastructure.

Now imagine the scale when you include multiple other conglomerates, region-wide and diaspora-based companies , the amount of capital flowing back into Somalia is far greater than what any of these reports show.

 

[Barkhadle1520]

I definitely think will see this in the next 5 years.

Tbh it alll depends on if FGS manages to get a huge boost in revenues, Im talking billions in oil or taxes, they would need hundreds of millions as the SNBS stated to provide accurate statistics

But its funny how even somalis have no idea how much capital and assets somali buisnessman have becuase of how low-key they are.

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