Since the end of the 1970s, Ivorian industry, long a showcase of the “Ivorian miracle”, had gradually become fragile. With an industrialization strategy carried out by state companies, this had contributed to eroding the competitiveness of the manufacturing sector, which had never managed to exceed 20% of GDP, of which only 16% for the modern industrial sector. At the beginning of the 1990s, Côte d'Ivoire was weighed down by chronic over-indebtedness, excessive exposure to fluctuations in raw material prices and a structural delay in its industrialization policy. The fall in coffee and cocoa prices (historic engine of the national economy) had siphoned off public revenues and dried up industrial investments. In the industrial sector, employment had continued to fall at an average annual rate of 3% since 1986, while the growth rate of production, already zero in 1987, had become negative, with -2.8% in 1988 and -1.9% in 1989. It was in this context of disintegration that the 1990s began.

The turning point of stabilization

The year 1990 marks a decisive institutional turning point. The Ivorian government has put in place a stabilization and recovery program which manages to reverse the trend of deterioration in the budgetary situation, despite the persistent drop in world prices of agricultural products. The appointment of Alassane Ouattara as Prime Minister in November 1990 embodies this desire for reform. An economist by training and former IMF official, he pursues a policy of rigor exceptionally appreciated by all of the country's technical and financial partners. It was also in 1990 that the privatization plan for public companies actually began, under the impetus of the Bretton Woods institutions. The Prime Minister announces the intention to transfer no fewer than eighty public companies to the private sector. The ambition is great. The aim is to consolidate state finances, make industry competitive and attract foreign capital. The Ivorian Electricity Company (CIE) is the first grand prize, its management is ceded to a subsidiary of Bouygues-SAUR, marking a symbolic break with the interventionist model which had prevailed since independence. 0);">However, the results are well below the stated ambitions. Held back until 1993 by the reluctance of parliamentarians and senior civil servants, the privatization plan progressed only very slowly. Of the number of companies announced, only a few had actually changed hands by that date. Namely publishing companies, holiday villages, breeding companies and the CIE. The industrial fabric remains under public control in its major strategic components. This resistance to change reveals the deep contradictions of the Ivorian model. The State, far from massively disengaging as prescribed by international financial institutions, remains omnipresent in the productive system. The hydrocarbons, agri-food and various industries sectors remain awaiting reform. It was only in 1993, under renewed pressure from President Houphouët-Boigny himself (who publicly renewed his support for his Prime Minister) that the program regained strength, with around ten mixed economy companies included in the disposal agenda. rgb(0, 0, 0);">In parallel with privatizations, the period saw the beginning of a vast movement of progressive disengagement of the State in several strategic industrial sectors. The Livestock Industrial Exploitation Complex (CEIB), the Régie des Chemins de fer Abidjan-Niger (RAN), Énergie Électrique de Côte d’Ivoire (EECI) and SODECI are among the companies targeted by this wave of structural reforms. The mining and construction sectors, as well as the agri-food industry, remain pillars of the economy, even if their contribution to GDP remains insufficient to compensate for the losses recorded in the manufacturing industries. In this context of difficult restructuring, foreign investments constitute a signal of hope. The government highlights their progress, particularly in the sectors targeted by privatization, with an increase of thirty billion CFA francs announced for the period 1990-1991. These capital inflows, even modest, testify to a regained credibility on international markets, a direct consequence of the sanitation policy led by the Prime Minister at the time.

Note that the period 1990-1993 constitutes an ambivalent hinge in the industrial history of Côte d'Ivoire. It was neither a saving break nor a simple continuation of the crisis. It was a difficult adjustment, a situation of external constraint and internal resistance. The reforms undertaken laid the foundations for a renewal, which would only fully materialize after the devaluation of the CFA franc in 1994, but they also revealed the structural limits of an industrial model too dependent on raw materials and public procurement.