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Guinea Bissau
Property For Sale in Guinea Bissau
Guinea-Bissau is located on the West African coast between Senegal to the North and Guinea Conakry to the South and has a 350-kilometer-long coastline.
After being the first Portuguese colony to gain its independence, in 1974, since then Guinea-Bissau has been the setting for several state coups, attempted coups and deposed presidents which have led to the country’s economic ruin.
The guerrilla war against Portugal began in Guinea-Bissau, and the leaders of the country unilaterally declared independence on September 24, 1973 and Portugal recognized this on September 10 of the next year, after the April 25 revolution in Portugal.
Recent presidential elections gave victory to Nino Vieira, who was previously the country’s president after a coup in 1980. In 1994 he was elected president in Guinea’s first free elections and was overthrown in 1999 and substituted by Kumba Iala, who was later overthrown in a further coup.
Guinea’s population of 1.4 million people has a low life expectancy of just 47 years and the infant mortality rate is 107 deaths to every 1,000 births.
Guinea-Bissau is one of the 10 poorest countries in the world and mainly depends on agriculture and fishing. In more recent years the production of cashew nuts has increased significantly making the country the sixth largest producer in the world.
Guinea-Bissau has reserves of phosphates and other minerals but extraction is unlikely to be carried out in the near future due to the high costs involved. Despite this the exploration of off-shore oil reserves may give the country the required revenue in the long term.
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