A country with GDP purchasing power parity at US$3.971 billion (2007 est.), official exchange rate US$1.664 billion while its GDP growth rate stands at 6.8 per cent, Sierra Leone could still benefit a lot from exporting.

Its natural resource export potentials include diamonds, rutile, bauxite, gold, iron ore, ilmenorutile, platinum, chromite, manganese, cassiterite, molybdenite, as well as forests, abundant fresh water, and rich offshore fishing grounds.

Although it could only cultivate 7.95 per cent of its 30 per cent potentially arable land, the country's agricultural sector produces coffee, cocoa, ginger, palm kernels, cassava, bananas, citrus, peanuts, cashews, plantains, rice, sweet potatoes and vegetables.

Exports between October 2004 and 2005stood at US$158 million mainly of rutile, diamonds, bauxite, coffee, cocoa, fish to major destinations like Belgium, Germany, United States and India.

During the same year the country imported US$330 million worth of foodstuffs, machinery and equipment, fuel and lubricants, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, building materials, light consumer goods, used clothing, textiles from Germany, Cote d'Ivoire, United Kingdom, US and China.

What does Sierra Leone stand to benefit?

Market diversification: by exporting you avoid dependency on the domestic market. In times of tough market conditions or a long economic recession any business may be affected. The best way to avoid those types of risks is through market diversification.

Additional source of revenues: selling abroad to a reliable distributor for a long period of time will provide you additional steady streams of revenues.

Use of excess production capacity: increase production to achieve an efficient level of production while reducing fixed costs.

Leverage on purchasing power: increase the negotiation power at the time of purchasing higher volume of raw materials, which will finally be part of your export products.

Business operation stability: if your business operation is subject to revenue fluctuations due to season factors, exporting to countries with opposite seasons will allow your company gain stability in its operations.

Product life cycle extension: when products reach the maturity stage many companies replaced them with new products investing significant amount of resources in their development. However, exporting them to specific target markets, mature products may still have potential abroad.

Product improvement: competing in international markets is an excellent source of learning to gain more competitiveness in the domestic market.