Among the 25 poorest countries in the world, landlocked Mali depends on gold mining and agricultural exports for revenue. The country's fiscal status fluctuates with gold and agricultural commodity prices and the harvest; cotton and gold exports make up around 80% of export earnings. Mali remains dependent on foreign aid. ++ Economic activity is largely confined to the riverine area irrigated by the Niger River; about 65% of Mali's land area is desert or semidesert. About 10% of the population is nomadic and about 80% of the labor force is engaged in farming and fishing. Industrial activity is concentrated on processing farm commodities. The government subsidizes the production of cereals to decrease the country's dependence on imported foodstuffs and to reduce its vulnerability to food price shocks. ++ Mali is developing its iron ore extraction industry to diversify foreign exchange earnings away from gold, but the pace will depend on global price trends. Although the political coup in 2012 slowed Mali's growth, the economy has since bounced back, with GDP growth above 5% in 2014-17, although physical insecurity, high population growth, corruption, weak infrastructure, and low levels of human capital continue to constrain economic development. Higher rainfall helped to boost cotton output in 2017, and the country's 2017 budget increased spending more than 10%, much of which was devoted to infrastructure and agriculture. Corruption and political turmoil are strong downside risks in 2018 and beyond.

Moody's rating: Caa1 (2020)

cotton, millet, rice, corn, vegetables, peanuts; cattle, sheep, goats

food processing; construction; phosphate and gold mining

calendar year

Switzerland 31.8%, UAE 15.4%, Burkina Faso 7.8%, Cote d'Ivoire 7.3%, South Africa 5%, Bangladesh 4.6% (2017)

cotton, gold, livestock

petroleum, machinery and equipment, construction materials, foodstuffs, textiles

Senegal 24.4%, China 13.2%, Cote d'Ivoire 9%, France 7.3% (2017)

Communaute Financiere Africaine francs (XOF) per US dollar -

general assessment: telecoms infrastructure is barely adequate in most town and not available in many areas of the country; geography is a challenge for telecommunications; poverty, security, high illiteracy and low PC use has taken its toll; 4 mobile operators in market; mobile penetration high and potential for mobile broadband service; local plans for Internet Exchange Point; as Mali is landlocked there is hope that neighboring countries will allow use of international bandwidth; G5 Sahel countries adopt free roaming measures; Chinese company Huawei attempts to build a national backbone network but security issues make this difficult (2020)

domestic: fixed-line subscribership 1 per 100 persons; mobile-cellular subscribership has increased sharply to over 115 per 100 persons; increasing use of local radio loops to extend network coverage to remote areas (2019)

international: country code - 223; satellite communications center and fiber-optic links to neighboring countries; satellite earth stations - 2 Intelsat (1 Atlantic Ocean, 1 Indian Ocean)

national public TV broadcaster; 2 privately owned companies provide subscription services to foreign multi-channel TV packages; national public radio broadcaster supplemented by a large number of privately owned and community broadcast stations; transmissions of multiple international broadcasters are available (2019)

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TZ, TT (2016)

河港: Koulikoro (Niger)