Liberia Courts U.S. Maritime Investment at UN Roundtable in New York
Liberian Foreign Minister Sara Beysolow Nyanti during a meeting at the IAEA in Vienna in March 2024 (file photo, illustrative of Minister Nyanti, not of this week's New York roundtable). Photo: Dean Calma / IAEA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Foreign Minister Sara Beysolow Nyanti and Liberian officials met U.S. counterparts and shipping investors on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, pitching Liberia's ports and open shipping registry as an investment opportunity beyond its traditional flag-state role.
Liberia's Foreign Minister Sara Beysolow Nyanti led Liberian officials into a series of meetings with United States counterparts and private investors in New York this week, seeking to position the country's ports and open shipping registry as a fresh investment opportunity beyond Liberia's long-standing role as a flag state.
The discussions took the form of a "U.S.-Liberia Atlantic Ocean Maritime Business Roundtable," held on the margins of the 81st session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA81), according to The New Dawn Liberia and the Liberian Observer. Participants included U.S. Ambassador to the UN Michael Waltz, Liberia's Maritime Commissioner Cllr. Neto Zarzar Lighe Sr., National Security Adviser Samuel Kofi Woods, and U.S. State Department officials alongside shipping executives and investors.
Nyanti told the gathering that Liberia wants to move "beyond its traditional role as a major flag state toward becoming a maritime hub capable of generating greater economic value at home," according to the Observer's report. Topics on the agenda reportedly included maritime security, modernizing the Freeport of Monrovia and the port of Buchanan, sustainable fisheries and ship repair.
Participants called for a follow-up "U.S.-Liberia Maritime Investment Dialogue" to translate this week's talks into concrete projects, though no date or details for such a dialogue have yet been confirmed — it remains a stated intention rather than a scheduled event.
The roundtable came during a busy week of diplomacy for Liberia at the United Nations. The country has returned to the UN Security Council for the first time in 65 years and is set to assume the council's rotating presidency in December, while President Joseph Boakai's government also discussed maritime and port security cooperation with Cyprus on the sidelines of the same UN session.