Despite receiving support from international institutions, Yaounde recorded its worst economic performance in two decades.

With negative growth likely when the statistics come in for 2020 – -1.2% compared to a previously predicted 4.1% – the country is expected to record its worst economic performance in the last two decades.

This is a trend that Yaounde wants to work to reverse in order to stop the recession. The task promises to be difficult in a climate marked by successive falls in oil prices, the halt in growth kinked to the African Cup of Nations’ infrastructure projects and the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.

The only positive aspect of this unfortunate situation is that Cameroon continues to receive support from international institutions. With debt around 40% of GDP, international partners – such as the IMF – strongly supported the country in 2020, while praising its economic discipline.

Infrastructure and industrialisation

In the medium term, Cameroon plans to use its Stratégie Nationale de Développement 2020-2030 – unveiled in mid-November 2020 – to set a new course. It was conceived after the previous plan – the Document de Stratégie pour la Croissance et l’Emploi – failed.

President Paul Biya announced that industrialising the country would be of the utmost priority – which has been put temporarily on hold while the master plan of industrialisation is updated – as it could help stimulate economic growth.

THE RACE TO TRANSFORM

These advances should enable Cameroon to continue its preparations for the Africa Cup of Nations football tournament, which it will host in 2022. The building of infrastructure, which was at a standstill for a while, has made considerable progress. In addition, the African Nations Championship, reserved for local players and held in January on already operational sites, served as a trial run.

The Anglophone crisis is still raging

Finally, one remaining question: will the long-awaited decentralisation programme be successful? In early December, regional elections – which were won overwhelmingly by the ruling Rassemblement Démocratique du Peuple Camerounais – were held, but they are unlikely to put an end to the conflict between Yaounde and the English-speaking separatists of Ambazonia.

Re-elected for a seventh term in 2018, President Paul Biya has still not managed to resolve the Anglophone crisis raging in the South-West and North-West regions.

Culled from Africa Report

French Cameroun Beti Ewondo political dinosaurs have been in the way of realizing La Republique du Cameroun’s dream of economic prosperity.

For 38 years, Biya and his Beti Ewondo kinsmen and women have spent the resources of the two Cameroons not on development but antidemocratic means to stay in power.

Correspondingly, the new chairman of the Camair-Co board is Mauger Ayem, who is currently a technical advisor at the presidency of the republic. He is very close to the omnipotent minister secretary-general Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh.

Mauger Ayem’s appointment is a pointer to the fact that despite huge deficits in education, gender equality, health care, security and economic competitiveness in the two Cameroons, the majority of French Cameroun political elites remain preoccupied not with formulating genuine plans for improvement but strategizing antidemocratic ways to ensure their perennial hold on power.

Even after the arrest of Minister Edgar Alain Mebo Ngo’o, Cameroon Intelligence Report can now reveal that the Biya family dynasty is still dominating in Yaoundé.

By Chi Prudence Asong with files from Soter Agbaw-Ebai

Cameroon Concord News Group made some key points to the ruling CPDM crime syndicate when the disgraced Minister of State in charge of Transport Edgar Alain Mebo Ngo’o announced that renovation work had been completed at the Douala International Airport.

We asked if a neutral government body had gone to inspect the work done at the Douala International airport. What was replaced during the one month period of work? How much did it cost the Cameroonian task payer?  Was the Minister of Transport Edgar Alain Mebo Ngo’o ready to vouch for the safety of the airport? And we concluded that with regard to that operation and money spent, the nation needed an independent assessment.

We told the world that the same was true with the national carrier Camair-co. But because the French Cameroun dictator Paul Biya heads a government that no one takes responsibility, no one apologize and no one resigns, Yaoundé kept on appointing new managing directors of Camair-co. To be sure, Louis-Georges Njipendi Kouotou successfully became the seventh managing director of Camair-co in recent times. 

Louis-Georges Njipendi Kouotou and six others grounded the national carrier. Camair-co ever since President Biya and his Beti Ewondo kinsmen and women took over became short of viable planes. The situation grew from bad to worse and forced to travel by road for want of available Camair-Co aircraft, three French Cameroun government ministers ended up in a river. The accident again placed the national carrier’s management in a bind.

Despite the Covid-19 pandemic, which has grounded aircraft all around the world, Yaoundé has been actively seeking a consultancy firm to help it to develop the country’s civil aviation industry destroyed by President Biya and his gang.

Recently, Camair-co managed to get back in the air with a plane hired from Ukraine but our senior economic reporter in Douala confirmed late on Monday that Camair-Co’s future is sealed: the government is making plans to privatise 51% of the national carrier.

By Rita Akana in Yaounde

During the extraordinary general meeting held on December 16, 2020, the shareholders of Messapresse ruled in favor of the premature dissolution and the liquidation of the company which is the main newsagent in Cameroon. This decision follows a suggestion submitted by the administrative board during a meeting held barely a month earlier (November 30, 2020).

According to the official release published in that regard, the decision was prompted by the losses (estimated at XAF1.3 billion) being accumulated by Messapresse for six years now. This decision occurs barely one (1) year after the newsagent restarted distributing local newspapers in September 2019. Indeed, two years earlier, the company had stopped distributing such newspapers after French group Presstalis (the majority shareholder in Messapresse) decided to withdraw from the distribution of Cameroonian newspapers, 80% of which it claims are unsold. 

When Messapresse decided to relaunch the distribution of local media, it did so without the expertise of Presstalis (that supplies it with foreign newspapers distributed in Cameroon). Also, some news companies had launched their distribution networks (after Messapresse stopped the distribution of local newspapers in 2017). They include state-owned media Cameroon Tribune and various private media. For Messapresse’s management, these distribution networks also contributed to the dissolution decisions.

Source: Business in Cameroon

The United Kingdom and Cameroon have today secured an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) that ensures mutual continuity of trade.

An agreement has been reached to roll over current EU-Cameroon trading arrangements from 1 January 2021.

The deal allows businesses to trade freely as they do now, without any additional barriers or tariffs, and provides a foundation to extend our trading relationship in future.

Total UK trade with Cameroon amounted to £200 million in 2019.

Top goods imports to the UK from Cameroon in 2019 were in fruit and nuts, mostly bananas (£27 million) and wood and wood products (£25 million). The UK market accounts for 12% of total exports of bananas from Cameroon and this agreement will maintain tariff-free market access to the UK. It also guarantees continued market access for UK exporters, who sold £51m in goods to Cameroon in 2019.

Minister for International Trade Ranil Jayawardena said:

The United Kingdom is committed to supporting developing countries by encouraging growth through trade. The preferential terms for their key exports, such as bananas, will support jobs and economic development in Cameroon, and make sure British consumers get the products they want.

Culled from www.gov.uk

The effects of the unfavourable economic situation in Southern Cameroons continued to be felt on customs revenue with declines of 39.3% and 93.8% respectively in the Southern Zone (excluding SONARA) and Northern Zone.

This is contained a 2019 report released by the Cameroon Customs Department. The report also pointed out that the Southern Cameroons crisis has impacted the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between the European Union and Cameroon and has greatly affected trade between Nigeria and Cameroon.

According to the customs administration, the crisis is disrupting Nigeria’s imports from Cameroon such as rice, cocoa, eru, rubber, maize, cassava and plantain tubers, as well as chilli peppers including mangoes while Cameroon’s import of spare parts and electronic products has also been brought to a standstill.

The Cameroon Customs report also noted that trucks no longer circulate freely, especially on the Bamenda-Enugu trade route.

The customs authorities indicated that the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), implemented since 04 August 2016 which provides for the dismantling of tariffs between Cameroon and the European Union has also led to tax losses of CFAF 7.7 billion in 2019 against CFAF 4.3 billion in 2018, an increase of 78%.

As a reminder, this agreement enshrines the opening of the Cameroonian market to 80% of imports from the European Union in three stages corresponding to three groups of products.

By Rita Akana in Yaounde

MTN deployed 4.5G in the city of Abidjan to meet rising connectivity demand in the economic capital, while Orange Cameroon increased the speed and capacity of its LTE-A network.

Ecofin Agency reported, MTN’s announcement was made in the commune of Marcory. The operator said 4.5G boasts speeds up to 200Mbps, enabling customers to download a 15-minute video in seven seconds instead of 20 to 30 seconds.

Hyacinthe Seka, MTN Ivory Coast chief technical officer said the technology was launched first in Ivory Coast’s economic capital due to high demand for faster and reliable internet connection, and expansion of 4.5G to other locations will come soon. The construction of the operator’s 4.5G network was financed partly by the CAF40 billion ($74.4 million) in CAPEX the company made during this year, although did not detail how much exactly went into this project.

Orange Cameroon said its ‘4.75G’ LTE-A service was boosted in parts of Cameroon, this service was launched in January this year in a number of locations including: Douala, Yaounde, Mbankomo, Sangmelima, Mbalmayo, Ngaoundere, Bafia, Garoua-Boulai, Bandjoun, Bangangte, Ferme-Suisse, Mbanga, Yop and Mengbwa.

It was developed in conjunction with Finnish vendor Nokia and Orange, both began a major regional rollout of 4G LTE in 2018 to upgrade Orange’s RAN and to enhance mobile internet services, reported TeleGeography’s’ CommsUpdate.

Orange Cameroon chief engineering and network development officer, Abdallah Nassar, told TelecomTV the company trialed ‘fixed broadband’ 700MHz LTE service for enterprises, preparing for launch next year.

Culled from Developing Telecoms

A container ship owned by A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S was attacked off the West African coast, prompting the company to warn of a rising risk from piracy in the area.

The Maersk Cadiz was boarded by “criminals” on Saturday at about 2:30 p.m. Nigeria time while traveling from Tema in Ghana to Kribi in Cameroon, Maersk said in a statement. Nigerian naval ships have arrived to help the vessel, which can transport the equivalent of as many as 4,500 twenty-foot containers.

All 21 crew have been confirmed as safe, and the vessel has been secured, a spokeswoman for Copenhagen-based Maersk said. The ship was carrying cargo when attacked.

The boarding of the Maersk Cadiz follows an attack on another Maersk container ship near the West African nation of Guinea in February. That vessel, known at the time as the Maersk Tema, was owned and operated by two German companies.

The West African coast overtook Southeast Asia last year as the worst area for reported piracy and kidnappings at sea, with the number of seafarers seized rising by more than 50%, according to a study. Despite a global decline in piracy in 2019, attacks have continued in the Gulf of Guinea this year, especially off Nigeria’s coast.

“We are very concerned about the increased security risk from armed attacks on merchant vessels in the area,” Maersk Chief Technical Officer Palle Laursen said in a statement. “The risk has reached a level where local governments and the international community must take action to deal effectively with an unacceptable situation.”

The Maersk Cadiz was built in 2013 and sails under the Singaporean flag.

Source: Bloomberg.com