idi-font-size:11.0pt;font-family:" arial","sans-serif";mso-fareast-font-family:="" "times="" new="" roman""=""> World War II
and
especially the reconstitution of the colony of Upper Volta in 1947, despite the
fact that Ouagadougou had been selected as its capital. Besides being an early
industrial center in the country, Bobo-Dioulasso is also the hub of a rich
agricultural zone producing food grains, fruits and seedlings (mangoes, citrus),
export crops (cotton, cashews, and the gathered oil seed karite/shea). Due to
its prominent economic position, following independence in 1960 the city was
called "the economic capital of the country" (as opposed to the
administrative capital, Ouagadougou). Bobo-Dioulasso's economic advantage
vis-à-vis the capital declined, however, because of decades of government
policy favoring Ouagadougou. Little new industry arrived in the city during the
1980s and 1990s and some of the preexisting enterprises either closed down or
relocated to the capital. Economic life was primarily reduced to commerce
grounded in the agriculture of the region and services.
Since
2000 the city of Bobo-Dioulasso engaged in a new growth spurt, gaining once
again in population and economic vitality, benefiting from the internal crisis
in neighboring Côte d'Ivoire,
