The country of around 1 million people, located on one of the world's busiest maritime routes, will be one of the last in Africa to liberalize its telecommunications sector. The Djiboutian government announced on Sunday, July 11, its intention to sell a "significant minority" stake in the public company Djibouti Telecom SA to a strategic partner.

The privatization initiative is part of a plan to modernize Djibouti's economy and reorganize its public enterprises. “Djibouti plans to accelerate the pace of reforms of its public sector enterprises to better face international and regional competition,” President Ismaïl Omar Guelleh said in a statement. And to add "that it is a matter of ensuring that companies participate fully in the national effort to finance emergence and development". The only telecom operator in its market, Djibouti Telecom is engaged in a vast program to modernize the sector.