EXECUTIVE SUMMARY _____________________________________________________________________ 5.7 The CRM was informed about the Burkinabe capital market. It is organised according to the WAEMU and BCEAO guidelines and comprises mainly the monetary and financial markets. The monetary market, which started its operations in 1975, has two compartments. These are the inter-banking market and the market of negotiable debt obligations. The financial market covers the activities of the Regional Stock Exchange (Bourse Régionale des Valeurs Mobilières – BRVM) whose headquarters are in Abidjan. The CRM has observed that very few purely Burkinabe companies are listed on the stock market. It feels that the small size of Burkinabe enterprises and the predominance of family enterprises in the formal and informal sectors constitute a handicap to mobilising financial resources through modern instruments like the financial market. 5.8 The CRM observed that the mining sector is a promising growth sector, but recommends that the government takes all the appropriate measures to protect the environment. The mission commends the strategic orientations expressed in the policy letter on developing the private sector and the privatisation process, but recommends that the government introduce more transparency to the process of transferring state heritage. 5.9 With regard to taxation, the CRM commends the efforts made by the government to promote a developmental taxation system. However, it recommends that government should be more sensitive to proposals submitted to it by the private sector, particularly during its annual meetings with the government. One proposal it should consider is an additional reduction in the rate of taxation of industrial and commercial profits. This may broaden the tax base and result in the migration of many informal sectors to the formal sector. 5.10 The CRM identified a number of difficulties facing the private sector. These are the lack of transport infrastructure in many regions of the country; the shortage and prohibitive cost of energy, which is impeding the development of enterprises, especially SMEs; and the lack of long-term resources for funding the investments of small and medium industries (SMIs). 5.11 The recommendations made by the CRM include: (i) pursuing the fight for an integrated cotton industry, together with the other cotton-producing countries of West Africa; (ii) improving the training of young people, and other stakeholders in the economy, on available funds and aids by establishing better partnerships between the state and the private sector in training; (iii) extending the railway line to the Sahel and eventually to Niamey; (iv) developing alternative and renewable energies, especially solar and nuclear energy, in partnership with the countries in the region; (v) generalising and decentralising the activities of the Maison de l’Entreprise and one-stop shops in all the regions of Burkina Faso; and (vi) developing the production of dates, Arabic rubber and forage crops in the Sahel region, if the feasibility studies are favourable. 19