On April 23, 2026, the Compagnie Maritime d’Affrètement and the Compagnie Générale Maritime (CMA-CGM) officially inaugurated its regional Africa office in Abidjan, marking the transfer of its continental activities from Marseille. A first for the French maritime transport giant, which now chooses to anchor its strategy closer to its African markets. This decision is not just a logistical adjustment. It is a strategic act that reshapes the trust map in West Africa and reveals, in its apparent sobriety, the silent battle between Dakar and Abidjan to become the true center of gravity for multinationals.
In my upcoming book “Governing through Competence: Experiences, Lessons, and Trajectories of a Transforming Africa,” I explain that multinationals never settle based on intuition or sympathy, but because a territory speaks to them, because an environment promises them a form of stability, predictability, coherence, because a state offers them the conditions for a sustainable partnership. They observe countries like one observes a living organism, scrutinizing the quality of institutions, payment discipline, logistical fluidity, market maturity, infrastructure solidity, but also the weak signals, latent tensions, invisible risks. They know that growth is worthless if not protected, potential is worthless if not transformable, the market is worthless if the environment does not follow. They also know that the establishment of a multinational is never a commercial act, but a strategic, political, geo-economic act that spans decades, mobilizes capital, technologies, logistic chains, compliance networks, and quality systems.
In this cold and methodical analysis, CMA CGM’s decision appears as the logical consequence of an assumed Ivorian trajectory. Ivory Coast has understood that attractiveness is not just talk, but an architecture. It has invested in its ports, modernized its infrastructure, streamlined its procedures, stabilized its rules, embraced an industrial vision. Abidjan has become a space where decisions can be made, a territory where a multinational can project, plan, execute. The headquarters transfer is not a tribute, but a silent validation of Ivorian coherence.
In contrast, Senegal finds itself in a paradoxical position. Dakar reassures with its political history, diplomacy, institutional role. The country inspires confidence, but this confidence is often theoretical. Multinationals see a respected state, but not always an operational state. They observe administrative delays, unpredictable procedures, high logistical costs, work framework rigidity, regulatory volatility. They see a country of offices, but not yet a country of hubs, a country of representations, but not yet a country of decisions. And in this reading, investment decisions become silent verdicts.
This is how Japan Tobacco International (JTI) chose to close its Senegalese factory MTOA and relocate all production to Ivory Coast. This choice was not emotional. It was rational. JTI chose Abidjan because it offered what Dakar no longer guaranteed: predictable administration, controlled logistical costs, coherent industrial vision, rapid execution. This departure was a message, a message that international investors perfectly understood: when the rules become blurred, companies leave.
Colgate-Palmolive followed the same trajectory. The Senegalese factory, despite being a historical hub for West and Central Africa, closed its doors. Again, it was not an accident. It was a symptom. A symptom of an environment that can no longer retain global actors.
This is where the second excerpt from “Governing through Competence: Experiences, Lessons, and Trajectories of a Transforming Africa” naturally fits, as it illuminates the deep mechanics of these decisions. “Multinationals observe countries like one observes a living organism. They look at what we see, but especially what we do not see: weak signals, latent tensions, invisible risks, structural vulnerabilities. They know that potential is worthless if not transformable. They know that the market is worthless if the environment does not follow.” This passage gives depth to the comparison between Dakar and Abidjan. It explains why some companies close their factories in Senegal, why others relocate their headquarters to Abidjan, why some hesitate, why others accelerate. It shows that multinationals do not read speeches, but behaviors, they do not follow slogans, but signals, they do not believe promises, but proofs.
In this silent battle, countries are not judged by their speeches, but by their ability to keep their commitments. Multinationals do not choose the states that speak the loudest, but those that last the longest. The competition is not ideological, it is structural. It is played out in deadlines, procedures, logistics, taxation, rule stability, administrative discipline, in this invisible geography that multinationals read with surgical precision. CMA CGM’s choice for Abidjan tells a simple truth: a country’s true wealth is not what it promises, but what it delivers. Ivory Coast delivered. Senegal can deliver. But it must accept that attractiveness is not just talk, but an architecture, an architecture built over time, in coherence, in constancy, in the ability to transform potential into certainty, promise into framework, ambition into execution.
Multinationals do not flee poverty. They flee arbitrariness. They do not flee challenges. They flee unpredictability. They do not flee risks. They flee the absence of a framework. And as long as this truth is not fully integrated, investment decisions will continue to draw a trust map where Abidjan advances, Accra consolidates, and Dakar hesitates.
But Senegal has now opened a breach: the new Investment Code, if rigorously applied, can once again become the foundation of a readable and competitive architecture, and offer the country the opportunity to reposition Dakar in the trusted geography of multinationals.
Lansana Gagny SAKHO, Adm.A., CMC
Author of:
– The Execution Agencies Facing the Performance Challenge: The Case of Senegal
– Governing through Competence: Experiences, Lessons, and Trajectories of a Transforming Africa
