SENEGAL Country Profile

The French began to expand onto the Senegalese mainland in the second half of the 19th century and made it a French colony. The French colonies of Senegal and French Sudan were merged in 1959 and granted independence in 1960 as the Mali Federation. The union broke up after only a few months. Senegal joined with The Gambia to form the nominal confederation of Senegambia in 1982. The envisaged integration of the two countries was never implemented, and the union was dissolved in 1989.

ECONOMY

Economic Overview

lower middle-income, services-driven West African economy; key mining, construction, agriculture, and fishing industries; tourism and exports hit hard by COVID-19; large informal economy; 

developing offshore oil and gas fields; systemic corruption

GDP (Purchasing Power Parity) $55.26 billion (2020 est.)

GDP per capita (Purchasing Power Parity) $3,300 (2020 est.)

Industries - agricultural and fish processing, phosphate mining, 

fertilizer production, petroleum refining, zircon and gold mining, construction materials, ship construction and repair 

Agricultural products - groundnuts, watermelons, rice, sugarcane, cassava, millet, maize, onions, sorghum, vegetables

Exports $2.362 billion (2017 est.)

gold, refined petroleum, phosphoric acid, fish, ground nuts (2019) 

Partners: Mali 22%, Switzerland 14%, India 9%, China 7% (2019)

Imports $5.217 billion (2017 est.)

refined and crude petroleum, rice, cars, malt extract, clothing and apparel (2019)

Partners: China 17%, France 11%, Belgium 7%, Russia 7%, Netherlands 7% (2019)

*Information obtained from CIA.GOV Click on our Country Profile  to get a complete downloadable copy of Senegal's World Factbook profile.