Beyond political instability, foreign investors face many challenges in Mali.
Insecurity is one of the most significant impediments to economic activity in Mali. Terrorist and armed groups operate across the country, making travel and transport of goods outside of Bamako hazardous. In 2025, armed groups conducted numerous attacks on artisanal mines, factories, construction sites, and fuel transport vehicles. Government efforts to secure roads and prevent attacks on economic infrastructure have had mixed success. Nonetheless, foreign businesses continue to operate in Mali, while taking appropriate safeguards.
The administrative procedures to start a business are numerous and time-consuming, and corruption and bribery remain rampant in many government offices. Investors report that corruption is particularly pervasive in procurement, customs, tax payment, administrative processing, and land management.
Despite recent efforts to simplify property registration, administration and safeguarding of land ownership remains a matter of concern. Recent reforms introduced in mining, customs, and land administration cannot guarantee the proper enforcement of business contracts, which depends on an unpredictable judicial system. The tax administration has recently adopted an electronic tax payment platform, and the government began digitalizing the payment process for public services such as identity documents in 2024. The government expects these measures to decrease processing times, errors, and the incidence of corruption. These initiatives have been welcomed, but in practice many users, including businesses, lack the infrastructure and equipment to access them. In practice, digitalization of public services is at a very early stage.
Other major challenges to investment include poor transportation infrastructure and a large informal economy. Limited access to electricity is a major challenge, particularly in the manufacturing sector. Insufficient skilled labor poses a barrier to growth for industries such as industrial mining. Access to credit remains a first order problem as well, as interest rates are high and local banks prefer to provide short-term loans though many infrastructure projects require more long-term financial instruments. As a historically francophone country, familiarity with French culture, business traditions, and brand names have long benefitted French companies, and the language barrier has tended to deter U.S. investors. However, public sentiment and recent government policy have de-emphasized those ties and now favor a more transactional economic policy which is opening doors to investment from other countries. Cheaper imports from China dominate the import market as Mali has only a small domestic market for consumer goods.