India–Ivory Coast relations SODEMI (Ivorian state-owned company for mineral development) have entered into a joint venture agreement (JVA) for the development of Mount Nimba Iron ore deposits in Ivory Coast (West Africa). The Mt Nimba deposit, spread over 3 countries - Liberia, Guinea and Ivory Coast, is one of the biggest in the Africa. With Ivory Coast still maintaining its status as the economic powerhouse of French West Africa, India is looking to open new factories in the country. Ivory Coast's Minister of Mines, Energy and Petroleum, Monnet Leon, has also urged India to make use of Ivory Coast's vast mineral resources, including
Sub-Saharan Africa West and Central Africa), or sometimes extending from the coast of West Africa to Western Sudan. Its equivalent in Southeast Africa was "Zanj" ("Country of the Blacks"), which was situated in the vicinity of the Great Lakes region. The geographers drew an explicit ethnographic distinction between the Sudan region and its analogue Zanj, from the area to their extreme east on the Red Sea coast in the Horn of Africa. In modern-day Ethiopia and Eritrea was "Al-Habash" or Abyssinia, which was inhabited by the "Habash" or Abyssinians, who were the forebears of the Habesha. In northern Somalia was "Barbara" or