Foreign and national investors are being wooed in a big way to the Ivory Coast, which is overhauling its 30-year-old mining code for their benefit. The objective, according to a draft code presented before the parliament, is to make mining of gold, diamonds and other minerals as important to the economy as its traditional strength, agriculture.

"Our mining sector needs to become as attractive as possible for national and international mining investors, so that in the medium term this sector will back up agriculture and become the second pillar of the Ivorian economy," says a government statement presented to parliament recently.