Business

According to the Director of Studies at the Electricity Sector Regulation Agency (ARSEL in French), Issiaka Fonfatawouo, 11,000 Cameroonian villages are still without the comforts of electricity. He observed the reason is simply that “the rural electrification projects, due to their structural shortcomings and small scale, seldom attract the attention of corporations who  prefer larger projects with greater potential financial gains'..

According to the ARSEL director, “In light of the minimal interest electricity companies have shown in rural electrification, solar energy projects and other renewable energy projects can play a major role in the provision of electricity to rural areas.”

It is certainly because of this that ARSEL revealed, in March 2015, the results of the search for sites for renewable energy in Cameroon. There is a total of 300 sites in total, of which 261 can accommodate small 5 MW hydroelectric plants and 35 sites able to produce electricity using biomass.

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Ngwa Bertrand

25.May.2015

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At Challenge Cameroon hosted in Nurnburg under the patronage of the Cameroon Ambassador to Germany His Excellency Jean-Marc Mpay, Cameroonian businessmen and elite are currently holding a business forum geared towards attracting German investors to Cameroon. The Cameroon business forum recorded the participation of guest speakers from other African countries.

Key speakers at the business forum included Mr Roosevelt Takou(Manager at BSF) Dr. Karamba Diaby(Afro-German parliamentarian)originally from Senegal, Mr.Francis Pouatcha(CEO Adorsys GmbH) who made a passionate appeal to the Cameroonian Diaspora in the Federal Republic of Germany to be more fluent in the German language. Ambassador Mpay (seen here) observed that there were 15.000 Cameroonians (holders of Cameroonian passports) in Germany. Correspondingly, the boss of the Cameroon diplomatic mission noted that Cameroon needs a huge workforce including those living abroad. Challenge Cameroon 2015 also saw the participation of Prof. Anaclet Fomethe, Rector of the University of Nchang.

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Ngwa Bertrand

24.May.2015

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The Korea International Cooperation Agency, KOICA, has officially handed Cameroon Online E-procurement System, COLEPS, to government in a ceremony in Yaounde on May 21, 2015, chaired by the Minister Delegate at the Presidency in charge of Public Contracts, MINMAP, Abba Sadou. The Public Contracts boss in the company of Cabinet Ministers, Issa Tchiroma Bakary for Communication, Emmanuel Nganou Djoumessi for Economy, Planning and Regional Development and Catherine Abena Ondoua for Women’s Empowerment and the Family alongside the Korean Ambassador to Cameroon, Lim Jae-Hoon, said accelerating the process to sharpen the skills of more stakeholders in the public contracts award chain was imminent as the project takes effect from January 1, 2016.

A new era for procurement related activities in Cameroon is born, with efforts to share experiences and advanced technology from Korea gradually paying off, notes Lim Jae-Hoon. The Korean diplomat recalled the goodness of COLEPS, emphasising that it “will enable public administration, private companies and service providers to perform public contracts related activities online. It said it will hence contribute to ensuring and enhancing transparency, accountability and effectiveness in the management of State resources.

Korean experts recommend an extension of services, sensitisation of public contracts award chain and the deeper appropriation of E-procurement for the country to have a complete and world class E-procurement system. COLEPS when it goes operational on January 1, 2016 will have, State’s annual project’s logbook, bids announcement, tendering of bids as well as results of bids published online. This, experts say, will reduce administrative cost and improve on the effectiveness and transparency of public procurement activities.

 

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Ngwa Bertrand

22.May.2015

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On May 10, 2015 at the Africa Aviation Summit in Dubai, the Congolese airline, ECAir (Equatorial Congo Airlines) announced that it will be launching new flights in Africa, including from Yaoundé, the Cameroonian capital, “in the next few weeks”.

Starting flights from Yaoundé, after Douala, is a part of the company’s regional network expansion programme. This expansion will include Abidjan, Luanda, Bangui, Ndjamena and the Brazzaville-Beyrouth line.

According to the Aviation Authority’s statistics, ECAir, which will be the official carrier for the African Games in Brazzaville (from September 4-19, 2015), only provided 2% of the air transportation from Cameroon in the first quarter of 2014.

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Ngwa Bertrand

20.May.2015

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The Douala International Terminal at the Douala Port has acquired 8 new tractors designed to help improve handling at the Autonomous Port of Douala. To promote the competitiveness of the port of Douala, the French company that manufactured the eight tractors has also been accorded the right to carry out maintenance work on the gantry cranes and gantries park.

This new deal has eventually made Cameroon a province in the French republic. Cameroon Concord gathered that the cost of these acquisitions amounted to 810 million FCFA. It is vital to include in this report that the port of Douala has presented in recent months, a high concentration of containers.

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Ngwa Bertrand

19.May.2015

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Ekoko Mukete, Vice President of the Cameroon Chamber of Commerce has urged the governments of Cameroon and the Kingdom of Belgium to continue to enhance mutually beneficial partnership. The prominent Cameroon businessman made the appeal during a meeting with a 30-man trade and economic mission from Belgian currently visiting Cameroon. The Belgian delegation was received in Douala on May 8 by authorities of the Region in the presence of the Belgian Ambassador to Cameroon, Jan de Bruyne, the delegation had their first-ever business contact with local investors the economic capital, Douala, and then headed to Limbe in the South West Region. For over a week the visitors who are from the Wallonia Export-Investment Agency, AWEX, and Brussels invest & Export will hold business exchanges in Douala and Limbe.

Ekoko Mukete, Vice President of the Cameroon Chamber of Commerce, used the meeting between business people from Cameroon and Belgium to call on both governments and business people of both countries to continue to enhance cooperation. Maysol Michez-Smets, West Africa Project Manager, who led the delegation of Belgian investors, thanked the government of Cameroon for accepting the exchanges. In 2012, for example, total trade exchanges between Cameroon and Belgium was about FCFA 185 billion, with a deficit on the part of Cameroon. Although business exchanges between the two countries is constantly on the rise, it is yet to attain the proportion of exchanges Cameroon has with its major economic partners.

From 2009 to 2013 Cameroon’s import from Belgium witnessed an increase of 16 per cent, representing 7.2 per cent of all imported goods on the Cameroonian market. Major goods from Belgium included alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks which rose to about 113 per cent, followed by combustible minerals with 110 per cent, ready-made clothes and accessories 103 per cent, and special fabric which rose to 102 per cent. Export volume of goods from Cameroon to Belgium represented 5 per cent of all exports from Cameroon to other countries, within the same period. Cameroon’s main export goods to Belgium wood and its derivatives, chemical and organic products, iron, cocoa, coffee, tea, among others. Since 2009, Belgium has been offering financial support to Cameroon for projects such as equipment and port surveillance installation at the Douala seaport, dredging of the seaport and the rehabilitation of the bridge over the Sanaga River to the total tune of over FCFA 16 billion.

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Ngwa Bertrand

15.May.2015

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