Business

Ever since the introduction to  apply online for connections and to be informed of the different services  of Cameroon's Electrical Energy supply (ENEO), the number of subscribers has been increasing tremendously. To date, ENEO records more than 100,000 subscribers  to its online service, EasyLight.

In addition, more than 150 new connections have already been made following applications online.
According to officials of ENEO, its online services are climbing at a 96% rate. These figures suffice to show that the company's operations are encouraging.
Earlier this year, the Economics Daily noted that "more than 600 visitors (75 per hour)," were able to verify the impact that the recent innovations  on improving the quality of services by ENEO had brought,amongst them, the electronic invoicing,energy serving tips, etc.

In addition to making life easier for its customers, ENEO Cameroon is actively implementing measures to supplying uninterrupted power supplies . The company  recently commissioned a second transformer in the neighbourhood Bonaberi in Douala. This second transformer has boosted an increase of 130% of the power supply for industries and households within Bonaberi.

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Rita Akana

20.Sep.2016

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Visiting the facilities at the Port of Douala on 14 September 2016, the Managing Director of the Autonomous Port of Kribi (PAK), the public company in charge of managing the first deep water port in Cameroon, announced that he is working towards making this port “operational as soon as possible”.

Thus, Patrice Melom declared, “we thought that one of the first things to do was to come and visit our more experienced veteran”. A visit whose goal, as highlighted by the MD of PAK, was to “get acquainted with the realities in the port sector and grasp the challenges now put to us”.

As a reminder, the deep water Port of Kribi, whose first phase works have been completed for several months, will start its activities with two terminals: container and multi-purpose. This new port, whose commissioning is expected to take place this year, has the biggest draught of the West African coast.

Built by the company CHEC, through a financing from Eximbank China, the deep water Port of Kribi, located in the Southern region of Cameroon, will be operated by French-Chinese and French-Cameroonian consortiums, led respectively by Bolloré Transport Logisitics and Necotrans.

BIC

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Rita Akana

20.Sep.2016

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Money sent back to Cameroon by its citizens living abroad peaked at USD 1.2 billion in 2015, approximately FCfa 585 billion, the British company WorldRemit announced. The world leader in digital money transfer specified in its communiqué that it obtained this statistics from the World Bank.

Quick calculation, this figure represents roughly 33% of the public investment budget (PIB) of the country for 2016 (FCfa 1,500 billion), over 60% of the funding necessary to implement the three-year emergency programme of the Cameroonian government (FCfa 900 billion), as well as close to 120% of the funds sought for the construction of the Natchigal dam (FCfa 400 billion), with a capacity of 400 MW, under development in Cameroon.

Over a 2-year period, these transfers from the Cameroonian diaspora more than doubled, as they were only of FCfa 218.7 billion in 2013, against FCfa 181 billion in 2009, according to statistics from the balance of payments department of the Ministry of Finance.

According to the latter source, until 2013, the CEMAC was the main point of origin for these transfers from the Cameroonian diaspora, with 38% of transfers registered that year, against 27% from France, 15% from the USA and 20% for the rest of the world. These funds, we learned, are for the most used to meet the basic needs of the families who remain in Cameroon.

“These money transfers from abroad play a major role in the economy of Cameroon”, highlighted WorldRemit, who has just launched its digital money transfer service in the country, through a partnership with the Cameroonian subsidiary of the Ivorian banking group Banque Atlantique.

The dynamism observed on the money transfer segment from the Cameroonian diaspora, which gathers 40% of the highly skilled workforce of the country, according to authorised sources; justifies the increasing interest from money transfers operators for Cameroon.

Indeed, alongside new entrants on this market such as WorldRemit and Afrimarket (cash to goods transfers), there has been stiff competition between heavyweights like MoneyGram and Western Union for some years now.
But aside from them, there is also the local operator Express Union, leader in the domestic transfer market, who extended its network to Western Africa and the CEMAC area, the community from which originates 38% of the money transfers made by the Cameroonian diaspora.
According to the international NGO PlaNet Finance, the volumes of money transfers made by the African diaspora as a whole could be higher than their current level, provided that the cost of the transactions were lowered.

Therefore, this NGO launched, in October 2013, the Initiative for the improvement of the money transfers by migrants to Africa, with the support of the Universal Postal Union (UPU), with financing from the European Union.

This 36-month initiative, we learned, is meant to lower the cost of money transfers for the African diaspora, when they are made via the public post offices network. The ambition, at the end of the project, we learned, is to cuts these costs by 30%, and consequently, multiply by 10 the volumes of these transfers.

BIC

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Rita Akana

16.Sep.2016

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Rita Akana

16.Sep.2016

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Six African countries in the South African Development Community (SADC) have been granted duty-free access to the European Union on Wednesday after EU Parliament’s approval of their Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA).

Namibia, Mozambique, Botswana, Swaziland and Lesotho can now export their products under this agreement while South Africa gets improved market access, the European Parliament said in a statement.

The deal was approved by 417 votes to 216, with 66 abstentions, the statement added. 

The agreement will enter into force after the Council of the European Union and the parliaments of the six countries ratify the text.

The EPA will ensure immediate duty- and quota-free access for exports to the EU market and also to create new and flexible opportunities for the region.

The six countries will also liberalise 86% of their trade with the EU over ten years with the exception of agricultural and fishery products.

Mozambique will liberalise 74% of its trade under the agreement which is in compliance with World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules.

Afrcannews

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Rita Akana

15.Sep.2016

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Since 8 September 2016, the sale of chicken is again banned in the Mifi district, main production area in the Western region of Cameroon, which represents 80% in national poultry production.

This decision taken by the regional authorities follows the discovery, a week ago, of the death of over 5,000 chickens on a farm in the area. The public authorities thus feared the start of a new bird flu epizooty, after the one of May 2016, which spread to five regions in Cameroon.  

This new setback for the local poultry sector comes barely a month after the decision from the Cameroonian administrative authorities, to authorise the gradual reopening of poultry markets in the five regions affected by the epizootic in May. It officially led to losses of approximately FCfa 10 billion in the Cameroonian poultry sector, according to the Poultry Association.

To recover from this bad situation, the Cameroonian Poultry Association (Interprofession avicole du Cameroun - Ipavic) recently expressed needs for 20,000 tons of maize and funding approximately worth FCfa 450 million to purchase phytosanitary products.

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Rita Akana

15.Sep.2016

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