Economy of Cape Verde Economy of Cape Verde Cape Verde is a small archipelagic nation that lacks resources and has experienced severe droughts. Agriculture is made difficult by lack of rain and is restricted to only four islands for most of the year. Most of the nation's GDP comes from the service industry. Cape Verde's economy has been steadily growing since the late 1990s, and it is now officially considered a country of average development, being only the second African country to have achieved such transition, after Botswana in 1994. Cape Verde has significant cooperation with Portugal at every level of the economy, which
African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde unprecedented as it denounced the Portuguese colonial rule as aggression and occupation. The UN recognition was prior to Portuguese recognition. The conflict had seen 1,875 Portuguese soldiers (out of 35,000 stationed in Portuguese Guinea) and some 6,000 (out of 10,000) PAIGC troops killed by the end of the eleven-year war. After achieving independence, the PAIGC was instituted as the sole legal political party of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde, with Luís Cabral becoming President of Guinea-Bissau. A second set of one-party elections were held in 1976 and 1977. Although the PAIGC strove for a union between Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde, the