She said the Senegal government recently discovered a huge offshore oil reserve off the West African country’s Atlantic coast.
She said it was a new opportunity for investors to gain advantage from the industry.
“It (O&G) is a new business for us (Senegal). We need to learn the technologies and technicalities in the O&G industry. Malaysia has done well in O&G and also has good training centres. Therefore, we hope to send our students to learn from Malaysia,” she told Bernama in an interview recently.
Diop said her government was planning to send Senegalese students to Malaysia’s Institut Teknologi Petroleum Petronas (Instep) in Terengganu by year-end.
Instep is a state-of-the-art technical training institute owned by Petronas Technical Training Sdn Bhd (PTTSB). Established in 1981, it aims to accelerate human capital development to support the growth of Petronas as well as Malaysia’s O&G industry.
Currently, the training institute also serves international clients from over 15 countries, as part of its aspiration to be a “Leading Partner of Choice in O&G Technical Learning and Certification”.
Diop said promoting education, tourism and business networking were imperative in strengthening and broadening people-to-people contact.
She said there was a spike in the number of Senegalese students in Malaysia, to between 70 and 80 people from only 10 to 15 previously, following various partnerships between the two countries.
Diop said Senegal emulated some of Malaysia’s success models, especially in services and administrative sectors, waqaf system, as well as the incentive system to support the small and medium enterprises.
“We are copying with some of the good things (in Malaysia) and we are on the way to doing that. Malaysians are generous in knowledge. If you have something good, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. If you are doing it well, we don’t need to go and spend 20 years to do the same things,” she added.
She said that Senegal, with over 90% of its population comprising Muslims, was currently setting up its own waqaf system.
The Senegal Government is also currently developing a new city near the town of Diamniadio, which is inspired by Putrajaya (Malaysia’s administrative centre). It is intended to ease congestion at Senegal’s current capital of Dakar.
Currently, there are few Malaysian companies in Senegal, including Iris Corp Bhd, a digital identity and business solutions company which will supply 10 million identification biometric cards for a five-year period.
In May 2016, the company entered into a contract with Senegal’s Interior and Public Security Ministry to produce and supply new multi-application identity biometric cards based on contactless chip technology and 10 fingerprint biometry.