Fishing is a highly profitable venture throughout the world; the tuna industry alone is worth $6 billion globally. Surveys of Somali waters show that there are significant fish stocks off the coast of Somalia—these waters are in fact considered to be some of the richest fishing grounds in the region. Many profitable species live in the waters off the coast of Somalia, data supported by the Sea Around Us Project, which studies the impact of fisheries on marine ecosystems across the globe.

This paper is a primer that discusses the challenges and opportunities of Somali banking. A foreign investor interested in Somalia would need answers to the following questions:

The Somali apiculture industry is still very much in its infancy, yet the potential to reap real rewards, is apparent. Today, though there is not much documented evidence on the current practice of beekeeping in Somalia, institutional memory points to the fact that the industry was making reasonable strides, and prospective for growth was high in the early 1980s. At that time, beekeeping was a private enterprise.

The government framework for banking in Somalia was largely destroyed during the conflict of the last 20 years. The civil war also forced hundreds of thousands of Somalis to leave and start new lives abroad. As they became settled, many sought to send money home, and a growing group of Somali entrepreneurs worked to facilitate these transactions. With no banks in Somalia to receive outside wire transfers, these business people established their own systems for getting money into the country.