Central African Republic seeks int'l support for rehabilitation plan

The Central African Republican (CAR) government will meet international partners on Nov. 17 in Brussels to obtain funding for its rehabilitation plan at a cost of 3.1 billion U.S. dollars, an official said.

Charles Armel Doubane, foreign minister of CAR, revealed this in an interview with Xinhua recently in Cameroon's capital Yaounde.

The foreign minister came to Cameroon with a delegation of the CAR government to present the country's recovery and peacebuilding plan at the 6th meeting of technical and financial partners of CAR held here earlier this week.

The recent crisis brought the poor and landlocked central African country into chaos after former rebel Seleka coalition took power in March 24, 2013 from then president Francois Bozize. The crisis has left 10,000 people killed and 361,000 displaced in CAR. Meanwhile, 468,000 ran to neighboring countries to live as refugees, according to latest statistics.

The Seleka government stepped down in January 2014 and an interim government was sworn in until the presidential election in February this year elected Faustin Archange Touadera as the new president who desires to bring the country back to the right path.

As a big producer of diamonds, CAR delivered to the market an average annual production of about 400,000 carats before the chaos, which was characterized as intercommunal conflicts between Muslim Seleka and Christian anti-Balaka.

The CAR foreign minister said, "We need to build a new CAR. We need great investment in infrastructure."

Revival of agriculture is very important for it is in the center of the government's strategy to rehabilitation of the national economy, he said.

Except rich forest and diamond reserves, CAR also has significant gold deposits.

The minister said some projects are already underway, like the delivery of Boali dam which is intended to supply capital Bangui with electricity. Endit