3.3 Cote d'Ivoire Additional Service Providers
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For information on Cote d'Ivoire Electricity Providers Company contact details, please see the following document: 4.2.9 Cote d'Ivoire Additional Service Provision Contact List

Vehicle Rental

The minimum age to drive a car is 21 years.

A valid national or international driving licence is always required. In the absence of an international driving licence, a driver staying only for a short period of time and holding a foreign driving licence is expected to obtain from the “ Direction des Transports Terrestres – Ministère des Transports” a licence in lieu of an international driving licence against temporary remittance of his national driving licence. Foreign drivers staying for a longer period in CI are expected to surrender their national driving licence and obtain a CI driving licence. Rental companies are found in Abidjan and the main towns. Rental of a vehicle costs on average 80 to100 USD per day.

For information on Cote d'Ivoire Vehicle Rental Company contact details, please see the following document: Cote d'Ivoire Vehicle Rental Companies

Taxi Companies 

Taxis can easily be identified by their red/orange colour. They are privately owned, duly licensed and display a meter. They are named: “Taxi compteur”. There are also small collective taxis – often yellow colour, also named wôrô-wôrô, - which operate on a fixed route like a bus. Each township has a bus station and taxi stands where all transport facilities converge: long distance bus lines, bush taxis serving the villages in the immediate neighbourhood, and local taxis serving the township. Taxi hired by day costs between 40 and 50.000 FCFA.

For information on Cote d'Ivoire Taxi Company contact details, please see the following document: Cote d'Ivoire Taxi Companies Contacts

Freight Forwarding Agents

For information on Cote d'Ivoire Freight Forwarding Company contact details, please see the following document: Cote d'Ivoire Freight Forwarders Contact details

Handling Equipment 

For information on Cote d'Ivoire Handling Equipment Company contact details, please see the following document: Cote d'Ivoire Handling Equipment Contact details

Electricity and Power 

For information on Cote d'Ivoire Electricity Providers Company contact details, please see the following document: 4.2.9 Cote d'Ivoire Additional Service Provision Contact List

Cote d'Ivoire is a net exporter of electricity and currently has installed electric generation capacity of 1 390 MW. The use of gas-fired electricity plants has turned the country into a regional exporter of electricity. Some of the client-countries connected to the Ivoirian power grid include Benin, Togo, Burkina Faso and Ghana. Gas-powered stations generate more than half of the country's annual production. The first gas-fired plant, Vridi II, was built in the late 1995 near Abidjan. Another power station at Azito, in Abidjan's suburbs, began to supply electricity to the grid in 1999. Azito now supplies 296 MW and is the largest generator in the country. Although they are no longer running at full capacity, hydroelectric plants (Ayame I and II, Kossou, Taabo, Buyo and Grah) still generate about 37% of the country's electricity. Fuel-powered individual generators are also widely used.

Electricity generation, transmission and distribution in the Ivory Coast is the responsibility of the Compagnie Ivorienne d'Electricité, known as CIE. The CIE, jointly owned by EDF and SAUR, has been trading with the Volta River Authority (Ghana) since February 1984 and exports electricity to Ghana, Togo and Benin. Cote d'Ivoire's current priority is to enhance its transmission infrastructure in an attempt to connect to West Africa's grid under the auspices of the West African Power Pool. The Tongon-Korhogo line is one of several large transmission projects either nearing completion or in the planning stage. According to CIE, the country currently has 1 849km of 225kV lines and 2 541 km of 90kV lines, a transmission network covering the entire country.

Cote d'Ivoire already exports to Ghana, Burkina Faso, Togo and Benin, but there are plans to connect with Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. The Interconnection Cote d'Ivoire-Liberia-Sierra Leone-Guinea (CLSG) project hopes to boost reconstruction efforts in these countries which currently have a limited transmission sector. Soubre is just one of several potential hydroelectric sites marked for development. Construction at the Tongon gold mine is due to be completed in 2012. This 90kV power line from the Korhogo substation located 60km south of the mine, began in 2010. The new substation at Tongon has 2 20MVA step-down transformers to help meet the needs of the mine. There is also 1 5MVA step-down transformer for the electrification of the surrounding region. A seventh hydoelectric system is being built at Soubre. This project will generate 275 MW and is expected to be complete by 2017. This project will connect to new lines connecting the country to Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. Cote d'Ivoire is planning an upgrade of the country's existing lines to Ghana and Burkina Faso. Construction on a 225 kV line to Mali was started in 2008 and is expected to be completed in 2012.

Type Installed Capacity (MW) Current Production (MW)
AYAME 1
Thermal power
20
123 565
AYAME 2
Thermal power
30
178 547
KOSSOU
Thermal power
174
104 173
TAABO
Thermal power
210
452 937
BUYO
Thermal power
165
894 745
FAYE
Thermal power
5
6 759
VRIDI 1
Thermal power
88
101 897
VRIDI 1
Thermal power
210
1.475.037
AZITO
Thermal power
300
2.173.626
Total of 61 small isolated plants
Thermal power

6.171

[1] E.g. Hydroelectric power, Thermal power…


Internet Service Providers (ISPs)

Globacom has announced it will land its Glo-1 international submarine fibre optic cable in the country which will bring down the cost of international bandwidth. In addition, several other cables are scheduled to reach Cote d’Ivoire in the coming years. The Internet and broadband market has remained underdeveloped due to the high cost of international bandwidth, caused by a monopolisation of access to the SAT-3/WASC international fibre optic submarine cable, the only one currently serving the country. Despite these obstacles, Cote d’Ivoire has become West Africa’s third largest Internet market after Nigeria and Ghana, with services superior to those in many other African countries, including ADSL with up to 8Mb/s. WiMAX and EV-DO wireless broadband services are also available, some of them at very competitive prices.

Fixed-line incumbent Cote d’Ivoire Telecom (CI-Telecom) was majority-privatised in 1997 when France Telecom bought a controlling stake. A second national operator (SNO), Arobase was licensed before the civil war but only got off the ground in 2006 and was then acquired by MTN. Both companies are rolling out CDMA2000 1x fixed-wireless systems and fibre optic backbone networks and also control leading ISPs in the country.

Third generation mobile broadband services have not yet been introduced but are expected in the near future as a means for the mobile operators to broaden their service portfolio and combat the rapidly decreasing average revenue per user (ARPU) in the voice market.

Internet Service Providers

Are there ISPs available?

(Yes / No)

Yes

MTN, Orange (Cote d’Ivoire Telecom), Afrique Technologies

Private or Government

Private

Dial-up only (Yes / No)

dial-up ; ADSL ; GPRS ; V-SAT

Approximate Rates

Dial-up:

n/a

Broadband:

n/a 

Max leasable ‘dedicated’ bandwidth

MTN, Orange (Cote d’Ivoire Telecom), Afrique Technologies

For information on Cote d'Ivoire ISP Service Providers Company contact details, please see the following document: 4.2.9 Cote d'Ivoire Additional Service Provision Contact List

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