Mauritania's export products
Exported ore products
- Iron ore (13 million tons in 2014)
- Copper ore (30,000 tons of copper per year)
- Gold (6.2 tons in 2015)
- This sector accounts for 80% of merchandise export earnings.
- Mauritania has several important mineral deposits attracting foreign investment.
- Mauritania also has resources in cobalt, diamonds, uranium, gypsum, and phosphate.
- Mauritania is among the world's top fifteen producers of iron ore, exported mainly in the form of magnetite concentrate.
- The country's phosphate potential has been estimated at 136 million tons of good quality phosphate.
- The extraction and processing of quartz, the raw material of the metal alloys used in the manufacture of solar panels, has also begun.
- Uranium exploration is underway southwest of Tasiast.
Exported food products
Represents almost 80% of merchandise export earnings with a production of 610,000 tons in 2016.
- Fresh and Frozen Fish (Exported Species, Courbines, Denton, Rouget, Groupers, Sar, Trout, Ray, Dorado, Pagre, Chien de mer, Marbre, Turbot, St. Pierre, Sardinelle, ...)
- Fresh, chilled, frozen, dried, salted or in brine molluscs and aquatic invertebrates (Octopus, Cuttlefish, Squid, Soles)
- Fresh and frozen shellfish (Lobster, Shrimp)
- Prepared or preserved crustaceans
- Flours, powders and pellets, etc.
- Fats and oils and their fractions, of fish or marine mammals
Mauritania trades 50,000 tons per year of frozen fish on board and ashore with about 74 trawlers and 46 shore factories. The country has a storage capacity of 19,000 tons (cold storage space of 8 fridges and 20 treatment units in Nouadhibou)
