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Following a press release,the break-up between Cameroon’s Industry Minister Emmanuel Bondé and heads of the Indo-Cameroonian company, Justin Sugar Mills, which was leading a design project for the Batouri sugar complex in East Cameroon seems final between the two parties.

The end of the partnership came in the form of a call for expressions of interest released on November 20, 2014 by the Minister of Industry for the “selection of a private investor to create and run the agro-industrial sugar complex in the Bertoua-Batouri mid-zone in the East region” of Cameroon. Interested investors have 10 weeks, counting from November 20, 2014, to submit their bids.

According to the government call for tenders, the Batouri sugar project consists of developing 32,000 hectares for sugar cane production. This commodity will be processed thanks to a factory to be built on site in order to correct the deficit in domestic production which varies between 60,000 and 90,000 tonnes and take advantage of the opportunities available on the sub-regional market.

The call for expressions of interest just launched by the Cameroonian government was announced by the Industry Minister in a release dated June 26, 2014 in which Emmanuel Bondé revealed the termination of the agreement protocol established on April 13, 2012 with Justin Sugar Mills, for the implementation of a sugar complex in Batouri which is located in the East region of Cameroon.

Emmanuel Bondé announced that the government’s decision follows “dysfunction (raised by the international auditing firm, Ernst & Young) in the application of the said agreement protocol, as well as in the carrying out of the project.” The government official had also specified that the site designated for the project was “immediately” reclaimed by the government, with Justin Sugar Mills being barred from accessing it.

Tug of war

On August 6, 2014, Justin Sugar Mills brushed aside the Industry Minister’s release by way of its Director of Finance and Investments, J. C. Geut. “Justin Sugar Mills Cameroon SA was never informed about any such decision by the State of Cameroon to stop such a major, socially oriented, developmental instrument in the East region and the hopes of the young people of a whole nation. Justin Sugar Mills finds that opinions expressed in the media, other than those of the company or the State, are being used to manipulate, discourage or sabotage the community development and anti-poverty project. A personal interest lobby has been trying for years to do this, without success,” wrote J. C. Geut.

In a defiant stance, to the extent that Mr Geut assured that throughout a meeting held on the same day when the Industry Minister announced the termination of the agreement with Justin Sugar Mills, “the Prime Minister expressed the need for competition in Cameroon’s sugar industry and affirmed, as usual, the government’s total support for our project, in accordance with the agreement protocol signed on April 13, 2012, which grants exclusive rights to Justin Sugar Mills Cameroon SA, to build the sugar complex in the Bertoua-Batouri, to guarantee 17,500 jobs to Cameroonians.” These remarks weakened the call for expressions of interest launched by the Cameroonian government on November 20.

Competition on the horizon for Sosucam

Worth an investment of 60 billion FCFA, the Batouri sugar complex was to be operational from January 2014, but allegedly had a variety of difficulties which continue to compromise the project’s execution. The project is to give birth to real competition from sugar production in Cameroon.

Its local subsidiary, Sosucam, is the only company to produce sugar and its base ingredient, sugar cane. Because of this, it has contracts to supply sugar (in powdered form) to local agglomerates (companies that convert powdered sugar into squares) who, unfortunately, complain generally about not being able to buy from this provider and often being obliged to import and this increases production costs.

Like Sosucam, Justin Sugar Mills, which is already present in Nigeria, Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo, is planning to establish sugar cane plantations on 15,000 hectares out of a total of 155,000 hectares belonging to the company on sites in Tikondi and Bodongoué, in the Batouri district. With its initial capacity to produce 60,000 tonnes per annum, the Batouri sugar complex plans to also produce energy for its operation and rural electrification using sugar cane waste.

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Ngwa Bertrand

01.Dec.2014

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"I made a choice not to sanction because that would have been easy," EC President Jean-Claude Juncker told journalists from a group of European newspapers. However, EU Economy Commissioner Pierre Moscovici stressed that "all possibilities" will be on the table when Paris' budget plans are reviewed in March without ruling out sanctions. "The commission will, of course, be extremely demanding," said Moscovici. Authorities in France, Italy and Belgium have promised to implement economic overhauls to shore up their public finances. So far, no country in the eurozone, which groups 18 countries, has come under sanction for failing to respect the EU's deficit target.

Culled from Presstv

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Ngwa Bertrand

29.Nov.2014

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The Banana Association of Cameroon (Assobacam) has revealed that banana dessert producers in Cameroon already exported 206,391 tonnes from January to October 2014. The leader in domestic production with peaks reaching 120,000 tonnes per annum, Société des plantations du Haut Penja (PHP), a subsidiary of the Marseille-based fruit company, is holding its position with 84,950 tonnes exported up to October 31, 2014.

The public agro-foods company, Cameroon Development Corporation (CDC), comes in second with 67 689 tonnes in exports. Partnered with America’s Del Monte for its bananas, it also produces rubber and palm oil. The 2nd largest employer after the State, the CDC out-exported Société des bananeraies de la Mbome (44,076 tonnes) for the first ten months of 2014.

Based on Assobacam’s exports, May 2014 was very successful for Cameroonian producers, the PHP having exported 10,431 tonnes compared to the CDC’s 10,520.

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Ngwa Bertrand

27.Nov.2014

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Cameroon Minister of Finance Alamine Ousmane Mey has launched the third bond issue 2014-2019 in Douala. Subscriptions were opened on Tuesday and will run until 23 December 2014. They fall under the ECMR 150 billion CFA francs operation. The third bond issue launched by the State of Cameroon comes after those for 2010 (200 billion CFA francs) and 2013 (80 billion CFA francs). It was developed by the CBS Cameroon, the local subsidiary of the Moroccan banking group Attijariwafa.

To finance structural projects in the energy and infrastructure sector, the 3rd bond that goes from 2014 to 2019 will be paid at 5.5% net per year. In total, 15 million of bonds in the amount of 10,000 CFA francs each, will be issued. According Mr. Alamine Ousmane, the rate is down and "it reflects the enthusiasm continued expression of investors for Treasury bonds of the State of Cameroon". The Francophone finance minister also invited investors to trust in Cameroon.

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Ngwa Bertrand

27.Nov.2014

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Nigeria has devalued the naira, saying a drop in oil prices had made it hard to defend its currency. The country's bank central bank also raised interest rates from 12% to 13% in a bid to stem foreign reserve loses. Nigeria has spent billions of dollars defending the naira using "dwindling foreign reserves", the bank's governor said. Falling oil prices also affected the Angolan kwanza, which hit a record low against the dollar on Tuesday. The bank's governor Godwin Emefiele said: "Falling oil prices have consistently reduced the accretion to external reserves, thus constraining the ability of the bank to continually defend the naira and sustain the stability of the naira exchange rate." The bank moved the target band of the currency to 160-176 naira to the US dollar, compared with 150-160 naira previously. It also raised interest rates by 100 basis points.

Nigeria, which has one of the biggest economies in Africa, and is one of the continent's leading energy producers, has spent billions of dollars in the past year shoring up the naira, Mr Emefiele said. Foreign reserves stood at around $37bn (£23.5bn), down over 18% from a year ago. "Big surprises from the central bank," said Razia Khan, head of Africa research at Standard Chartered. "With these moves the central bank has shown absolute commitment to dealing with current challenges," she said. "They have not shied away from the tightening needed to sustain current FX [foreign exchange] reserves." Meanwhile, Angola's kwanza traded traded as low as 100.895 against the dollar before recovering some ground to 100.700 on Tuesday. Angola is Africa's biggest oil producer after Nigeria.

Culled from BBC

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Ngwa Bertrand

26.Nov.2014

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Cameroon moved to a nine-digit numbering system at midnight on 21 November. Cameroon Telecomunications network operators have been on a continued addition of digits to telephone numbers in the last few years, having passed to 7 digits in 2001 and to 8 digits in 2007. The rise in subscribers at Orange and MTN, as well as the market entry of Nexttel has accelerated demand. Operators informed their customers by SMS that they will have to use the prefix 6 to call their numbers. Fixed-line operator Camtel said consumers will have to use 243 instead of 22 or 33 to call its numbers.

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Ngwa Bertrand

24.Nov.2014

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