Business

Experts in technological development and agro-industry have met in Yaounde again to strategize on the setting up of a Technological Agro-industrial Park, TAIP, in Cameroon. The Secretary General in the Ministry of Mines, Industry and Technological Development, Edouard Ebah Abada on August 12, 2016 told experts that Cameroon stands well to export research and development as well as processed agro-industrial products if a technological industrial park was put in place. He said, «We need to use the technological capacity and resources of companies whether large or medium enterprises, research institutes and universities to promote food processing.”

The National Coordinator of the Project to Design a Master Plan for TAIP in the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation, Chief Mbi Oruh Michael, explained that a technopole is a community of industries where Cameroon is going to process and transform its raw materials on the site. He said the country’s innovative products will be assembled at the pool for a better market share. It will serve as a hub for research and innovation and an incubator for promoting business and creating entrepreneurship. “We are putting in tools for industrialization,” he stated. 

Experts at the meeting focused on classifying policies, guidelines, laws and regulations that facilitate research centres and incubators in Cameroon. They also proposed workable strategies for the marketing of research results and intellectual property right protection for such centres.

Cameroon Tribune

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Rita Akana

16.Aug.2016

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The Ministry of Public Procurement has just awarded to the Chinese company China Road & Bridge Corporation, a contract worth FCfa 8.6 billion in total, to build the Logpom-Logbesou-PK 14 road in the city of Douala, the economic capital of the country.

For this contract, whose works will be undertaken over a 24-months period, we officially learn, China Road & Bridge Corporation was preferred over other companies such as Sogea-Satom, or Encobat, a Chadian company which is getting more and more vantage in the Cameroonian civil engineering sector.

China Road & Bridge is already present in Cameroon on at least two projects of the Urban and Rural Land Development and Maintenance Mission (Maetur), and on the project for the construction of the Yaoundé-Nsimalenmotorway, on which this company will build two kilometres on the urban stretch.

BIC

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Rita Akana

14.Aug.2016

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The Compliance Prior Loading Evaluation Programme (PECAE in French) for goods imported in the Republic of Cameroon will take effect starting from 31 August 2016, the Minister of Mines, Industry and Technologic Development, Ernest Gbwaboubou, just announced in an official communiqué.

This reform considered as major by the Cameroonian authorities and highly appreciated by local industrials, aims at, Minister Gbwaboubou explains, “strengthening the government policy in terms of quality, to guarantee the health and security of consumers, protect the environment and protect the local industry against imported products and raw materials of poor quality.

In order to implement PECAE, the Cameroonian government chose a consortium of companies gathering the Swiss company SGS and British Intertek International. These certified companies will be in charge of conducting, at the exporters' charge, conformity checks prior loading the goods going to Cameroon, a country still without high-tech laboratories to check the compliance of goods.

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Rita Akana

12.Aug.2016

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The South African telecom group MTN International announced in its financial statements as at end June 2016 that the number of smartphones on its network in Cameroon reached 2.6 million of devices, an increase of 34.1%.

This increase in the use of smartphones in the country follows the launch, by the two main mobile operators which are MTN and Orange Cameroun, of the 3G (March 2015) and 4G (last December) networks. Access to these two technologies is only possible if the subscriber has a smartphone.

At MTN Cameroon, the successive rollouts of the 3G and 4G networks was also supported by distribution, then marketing campaigns with promotional prices on these intelligent devices, better known as “android telephones”.

BIC

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Rita Akana

11.Aug.2016

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The Cameroonian counterparts in the projects for the construction of two football stadia of 50 and 60,000 seats in Douala (FCfa 166 billion) and Yaoundé (FCfa 163 billion), in anticipation of the 2019 AfCON, will be financed by the local subsidiaries of the Gabonese and Nigerian banking groups BGFI and UBA.

This is what revealed a decree from the Cameroonian Head of State signed on 4 August, presidential text which authorises the Minister of Finance to sign said loan agreements on behalf of the government, for a total amount of FCfa 24.4 billion for the stadium in Yaoundé.

As a reminder, the Yaoundé stadium will be built in Olembe by the Italian company Piccini, while the one in Douala, which will be located in Japoma, will be built by the Turkish company Yenigün Construction Industry.

BIC

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Rita Akana

11.Aug.2016

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The 2016 edition of Festicacao, the international festival of Cameroonian cocoa, will take place from 11 to 13 August at the Palais des Sports of Yaoundé, the Cameroonian capital, the Interprofessional Cocoa and Coffee Council (CICC) announced. This edition will be centred on the theme: “regeneration by New Generation”, a way of celebrating the results of the New Generation programme launched in 2012.

This programme, which is meant to rejuvenate farms and farmers in the cocoa and coffee sectors already enabled the supervision of 1,000 youth in the production areas of the country, young farmers who were able to create 1,400 hectares of cocoa farms to date. The first farms from this programme started producing during the 2014-2015 season.

Before the 2016 Festicacao, CICC even organised from 8 to 9 August at the Palais des Congrès of Yaoundé, the very first edition of the New Generation forum on the theme: “Cocoa-coffee: opportunity sectors for the youth”. This event gathered hundreds of youth and the different players in the cocoa-coffee sectors.

According to CICC, the main goals of the event were “to share the learnings and exchange experiences on youth access to the work market in agriculture in general and the cocoa-coffee sectors in particular, to generate support from public and private partners to the New Generation programme, to present the New Generation programme as an opportunity to return home for the Cameroonian diaspora, to reflect on and develop strategies and partnerships to ensure the longevity and amplification of the programme”.

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Rita Akana

10.Aug.2016

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