Business

Foundation stone for fake Kribi refinery

21, July 2025

Foundation stone for fake Kribi refinery 0

Cameroon has laid the foundation stone for the construction of a new oil refinery and petroleum reserve depot in the southern part of the country, according to the state-run National Hydrocarbons Corporation (SNH).

The refinery, which is constructed on a 250-hectare site within the Kribi industrial port zone, will have a processing capacity of 30,000 barrels per day, said Nathalie Moudiki, who represented the executive general manager of SNH at the occasion on Thursday.

She added that the fuel storage terminal will have an initial capacity ranging from 250,000 to 300,000 cubic meters.

The new refinery is designed to process Cameroon’s crude oil, aiming to reduce fuel imports by 30 percent, according to SNH.

The construction works are expected to take 18 months. It will be Cameroon’s second oil refinery upon completion. The country’s lone refinery in the seaside resort town of Limbe has been shut down since 2019 following a devastating fire. Cameroon has since relied on imported refined fuel.

Source: Xinhuanet

Freedom House recommends that Cameroon remain ineligible for US Trade Benefits

17, July 2025

Freedom House recommends that Cameroon remain ineligible for US Trade Benefits 0

Given the Cameroonian government’s ongoing persecution and arbitrary detention of journalists, the country has failed to meet a US statutory requirement on progress toward the rule of law and the protection of human rights.

Ahead of the July 18 public hearing on country eligibility for US trade benefits under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), Freedom House issued the following policy statement:

“In partnership with the Committee to Protect Journalists, Freedom House has submitted a written comment urging the US government to find that Cameroon should not be eligible for AGOA trade benefits for calendar year 2026 due to its repression and detention of journalists.

“To be eligible for trade benefits under AGOA, sub-Saharan African countries must meet statutorily defined criteria, several of which relate to human rights. They include (1) establishing, or making continual progress toward establishing, the rule of law and the right to due process, a fair trial, and equal protection under the law; (2) not engaging in gross violations of internationally recognized human rights; and (3) cooperating with international efforts to eliminate human rights violations. However, as the ongoing repression and detention of journalists makes clear, Cameroon does not fully meet these criteria.

“As detailed in our written comment, journalists in Cameroon who are charged, arrested, and criminally prosecuted are routinely subjected to egregious violations of their due process and fair trial rights. More generally, as Freedom House has documented in its annual reports, due process and the rule of law in Cameroon have declined in recent years. In Freedom in the World 2019 and Freedom in the World 2020, Cameroon received a score of 1 out of 4 on the indicator for due process and 1 out of 16 for the larger rule-of-law subcategory, but each year since based on collected evidence, the country has received a score of 0 for both subcategories. 

 “Moreover, by frequently subjecting journalists to prolonged arbitrary detention—which is often accompanied by torture, a lack of any formal charges or trial, and incommunicado conditions that amount to enforced disappearance—Cameroonian authorities are perpetrating gross violations of internationally recognized human rights. Finally, by ignoring the opinions of the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention—which has found that the detentions of journalists Tsi Conrad, Amadou Vamoulké, Mancho Bibixy Tse, and Thomas Awah Junior violate international law and called for their immediate release—the Cameroonian government is not cooperating with international efforts to eliminate human rights violations.

“Therefore, Cameroon should be designated as ineligible for AGOA trade benefits until it makes significant progress in its treatment of journalists. Such progress must include the release of the four detained journalists listed above, as well as a fifth, Kingsley Fomunyuy Njoka, who has been behind bars in violation of international law since 2020.”

Cameroon is rated Not Free in Freedom in the World 2025.

Culled from Freedom House

The Moudiki empire: A dynasty drunk on Cameroon oil

14, July 2025

The Moudiki empire: A dynasty drunk on Cameroon oil 0

In a republic long desecrated by dynastic ambitions and geriatric despotism, Cameroon now bears witness to a scandal so brazen, so unrepentantly venal, that even the ghosts of accountability must surely weep. The Société Nationale des Hydrocarbures (SNH), the state oil and gas company meant to steward the nation’s most valuable resource, has degenerated into a private fiefdom of the Moudiki family, operating with all the arrogance of a medieval court and none of the shame.What masquerades as national development at Kribi Deep Seaport is in truth a festering symbol of oligarchic capture, disguised under bulldozers, steel, and state silence. The so-called Cstar Tank Farm Project – a shady petro-venture being shoved down the throat of public interest – is not merely a corporate overreach. It is a state-sanctioned incest of power, privilege, and plunder.

A family affair, draped in the national flag

At the rotting center of this farce is Adolphe Moudiki, the 86-year-old director-general of SNH – senile in sight, but still omnipotent in reach. Too frail to stand, yet firm enough to rule by proxy, he has now crowned his wife, Nathalie Moudiki, queen-regent of SNH’s new era of nepotism. As legal director and now inspector general – a newly invented post tailor-made for dynastic expansion – she commands the institution like a duchess inheriting ancestral land.

Nathalie Moudiki, who now presides over Cstar, SNH’s shady new subsidiary, is pushing forward a multi-billion-dollar petroleum project without board approval, as if the nation’s hydrocarbons were the inheritance of a noble house, not the patrimony of a people. The project lubricated by dubious Dubai meetings, offshore shell structures, and suspicious partnerships, bears all the fingerprints of a classic kleptocratic heist. The involvement of Franck Hertz Biya, the First Lady, Chantal Biya’s son, only sharpens the stench. That the President’s inner court is now dabbling in opaque oil ventures, playing puppeteer over contracts and concessions, makes mockery of even the pretense of governance.

Kribi: Where dreams go to be laundered

Franck Hertz-Biya is playing an active role in the current negotiations for the attribution to SNH of a 250-hectare site in Kirbi port. A memorandum of understanding between the Port Autonome de Kribi (PAK) and SNH is expected to be signed soon. The project is driven by the special-purpose vehicle (SPV) Cstar Tank Farm Project Management, which groups SNH, its distribution subsidiary Tradex, and Ariana-RCG consortium, owned by the secretive Lebanese businessman Azzam Makhlouf, who is Vanuatu’s honorary consul and special envoy to the Middle East. Cstar is planning to build a refinery, a petroleum product storage terminal, and a gas pipeline in Kribi.

Although SNH’s Board of Directors have yet to approve Cstar as a strategic partner, Nathalie Moudiki, legal director and now inspector general of SNH; who doubles as CEO of Cstar, is already acting as if Cstar is an integral part of SNH; and she is pushing the project forward. On June 19, Cstar’s managing directors met in Dubai to approve the company’s development plan and the creation of its local subsidiary, the Joint Operating Co (JOC). According to a confidential communiqué reviewed by Cameroon Intelligence Report, the JOC will be in charge of “operating and maintaining the terminal for the storage of strategic reserves of petroleum products in Kribi.”

Among the figures present at the Dubai meeting were Franck Hertz-Biya, Emmanuel Patrick Mvondo, Tradex CEO and Mougnal Sidi, Director of Legal Affairs at the Ministry of External Relations. Sidi, has been tipped to officially replace Nathalie Moudiki as head of SNH’s legal department, is the mastermind behind Cstar’s sprawling legal structure.

The Kribi storage terminal, on paper, is a symbol of industrial growth. In practice, it is an altar to corruption, constructed with no transparency, no parliamentary scrutiny, and no credible oversight. The Dubai-based legal structure, orchestrated by Mougnal Sidi, another foot soldier in this grotesque theatre, is designed not for efficiency, but for obfuscation. It is a legal maze meant to hide profits, evade scrutiny, and funnel public wealth into private vaults. This isn’t development. It is plunder at the speed of progress. It is the reanimation of feudal Africa by way of petroleum pipelines.

The Deafening Silence of Power

The scandal has drawn public outrage from public figures like Akere Muna, whose called for an independent audit of Cstar have so far met a brick wall of bureaucratic cowardice. Where is Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh, the powerful secretary general to the presidency that publicly spars with the Moudikis, yet does nothing to sever the rot? Where is Energy Minister Gaston Eloundou Essomba, whose portfolio has been hijacked by this royal family and its foreign co-conspirators? Where is the Cameroonian state, when its wealth is being handed to Lebanese middlemen, Vanuatu consuls, and princeling operatives? Cameroon is governed not by law, but by clan, by a coven of career courtiers who sip champagne while villages burn kerosene to light their homes. The SNH has ceased to be a state enterprise. It is a cathedral of corruption, and the oil it controls is not black gold; it is black betrayal.

From Republic to Petrocracy

The Biya regime, now entering its fifth decade of zombified rule, presides over a country where oil flows upward, not outward, and where institutions serve only to formalize theft. SNH, instead of funding roads, schools, or hospitals, has become the treasury of a twilight monarchy. The Moudikis, Hertz, Makhlouf, and their ilk are pimps of the public purse, trafficking national assets in luxury boardrooms while millions live and die in darkness. The Kribi refinery and storage terminal will not store hope. It will store fuel — for yachts, not ambulances; for Range Rovers, not rescue boats .And while Adolphe Moudiki clutches power from his hospital bed, and Nathalie sharpens her knives at SNH headquarters, the very concept of republicanism drowns in an oil slick of cynicism.

Let this be a warning

To the Moudiki clan: your names will not be remembered as builders, but as plunderers wrapped in tricolor. You will not be praised as visionaries, but cursed as vandals of the nation’s soul. To the silent enablers in government: your complicity will not be forgotten. History does not absolve cowards who looked away while the nation was auctioned at Kribi’s gates. To the Cameroonian people: this is not governance. It is organized theft, polished with protocol and perfumed with PR. Do not be deceived.

And to the next generation: remember that your inheritance is being siphoned by a few, in Dubai boardrooms, under fake titles, behind closed doors. But oil is not eternal. And neither is tyranny.

Cameroon deserves a future unshackled from dynastic parasites. The SNH must be returned to the people — or it will become a monument to everything that ever went wrong in post-colonial Africa.

Let the Moudikis build their empire elsewhere. The nation is not their plantation.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai with intel files

Biya regime plans $1.16 bln international loan in 2026 despite credit downgrade

3, July 2025

Biya regime plans $1.16 bln international loan in 2026 despite credit downgrade 0

Cameroon plans to secure a “major external loan” of 650 billion CFA francs, approximately $1.16 billion, in 2026, according to an official document. The specifics of the transaction, which requires approval through the national budget law, have not yet been disclosed. It remains unclear whether the financing will come from international banks, multilateral institutions, partner nations, or through a bond issuance on public or private global capital markets.

Preliminary data as of March 31, 2025, shows Cameroon’s external debt stock at 8.56 trillion CFA francs, or about $14.1 billion. This figure notably appears to exclude the $550 million Eurobond arranged in 2024 by UK-based Cygnum Capital and U.S. investment bank Citigroup.

Breaking down the debt profile, 4.32 trillion CFA francs is owed to multilateral financial institutions, 2.88 trillion to bilateral lenders or partner states, and 1.69 trillion constitutes commercial debt. Of the commercial debt, 813.5 billion CFA francs comprises Eurobonds, including the 2024 issuance.

Another venture into international capital markets would not be surprising. However, Fitch Ratings downgraded the country’s sovereign risk rating to a negative outlook in May 2025. During its last Eurobond issue in 2024, Cameroon secured financing at a 9.5% interest rate, highlighting investor concerns about its credit profile. As of now, there has been no official confirmation of ongoing discussions with the International Monetary Fund, the African Development Bank, or other multilateral or bilateral lenders regarding this financing package.

Cameroon’s financial flexibility may expand with the anticipated repayment of its first Eurobond, issued in 2015, on November 19, 2025. This could open the door for new market activity. The proposed 2026 loan may, therefore, present an opportunity for investment banks and financial advisors specializing in sovereign debt operations.

According to government estimates, the funds will help bridge a 2026 budget financing gap of 2.12 trillion CFA francs. Should Cameroon opt for another Eurobond, it would mark its fourth such operation since 2015. The stakes are high, especially as investors assess the country’s economic stability in the lead-up to what is expected to be a contentious presidential election year.

Source: Business in Cameroon

BEAC Governor calls for urgent restoration of SONARA

18, June 2025

BEAC Governor calls for urgent restoration of SONARA 0

Yvon Sana Bangui, Governor of the Bank of Central African States (BEAC), is urging CEMAC countries to refine their own crude oil. He noted that the six CEMAC nations collectively spend approximately 2 trillion CFA francs annually on imported petroleum products like gasoline, diesel, kerosene, and domestic gas. This spending continues despite five of the six countries, excluding the Central African Republic, being crude oil producers.

Speaking on June 17, 2025, in Yaoundé during “Finance Week,” a platform for financial stakeholders, the BEAC governor argued that building crude oil refineries within CEMAC could significantly reduce or even eliminate these imports. This shift, he emphasized, would help preserve and strengthen the region’s foreign exchange reserves, which are currently strained by the heavy reliance on fuel imports. These reserves consist of foreign currency payments received by states and their economic agents, enabling them to make payments to international partners.

“We have the raw material, and its price trend is downward. Let’s commit to an import-substitution strategy and refine our oil,” Bangui declared. He added, “The cost of road infrastructure awaited by economic operators is very high in our region. To avoid this, we must locally produce bitumen. We must locally produce lubricants. All of this comes from oil. Even fertilizer can be produced from oil.”

The Sonara Refinery Fire and Regional Self-Sufficiency

This isn’t the first time Bangui has advocated for building oil refineries in the CEMAC zone to protect foreign exchange reserves from the impact of imported refined petroleum products. On June 24, 2024, during a press conference following the BEAC Monetary Policy Committee’s second ordinary session, he stated, “In Cameroon, I am calling for the urgent restoration of Sonara—the National Refining Company.”

Cameroon has been importing all its refined petroleum products since a fire destroyed Sonara in May 2019. At the time of the incident, Sonara was refining imported oil, not Cameroonian crude. The rehabilitation of Sonara, estimated at 250 billion CFA francs, was initially scheduled to begin in 2022 but remains pending.

Bangui’s call for Sonara’s rehabilitation echoes his statements made on June 14, 2024, during a visit to the Djermaya refinery in Chad. There, he urged company leaders to increase production to curb imports. “Today, the fact that all CEMAC countries import petroleum products places enormous pressure on our foreign exchange reserves. I issue a solemn call to the authorities and company leaders to do everything necessary to meet national and subregional demand,” he asserted.

Source: Business in Cameroon

Biya regime meets CFAF60 Billion 2022-29 bond payment

17, June 2025

Biya regime meets CFAF60 Billion 2022-29 bond payment 0

 Cameroon has launched the disbursement of the third tranche of its 2022-2029 bond on May 27, 2025. This was announced by the Director General of the Central African Stock Exchange (BVMAC), Louis Banga-Ntolo, in a press release issued on June 11, 2025. Payments to investors began on May 28 through brokerage firms and account-holding banks.

A total of CFAF 61.6 billion will be distributed to investors who subscribed to this public bond issuance, which includes CFAF 14.6 billion in interest. The BVMAC specified that “the net coupon per bond amounts to CFAF 2,625, comprising CFAF 2,000 in capital repayment and CFAF 625 in interest.”

Cameroon’s 2022-2029 bond, listed on the BVMAC on September 28, 2022, features a 6.5% interest rate and a seven-year maturity. This issuance allowed the government to raise CFAF 235 billion.

According to the Ministry of Finance, investor interest was strong, with offers totaling CFAF 239 billion, surpassing the initial target of CFAF 200 billion. This robust demand led the government to retain CFAF 235 billion, an amount authorized through an overallocation approval granted by COSUMAF, the sub-regional financial market regulator.

Source: Business in Cameroon

Flows of foreign direct investment to developing economies drop to lowest level

17, June 2025

Flows of foreign direct investment to developing economies drop to lowest level 0

Flows of foreign direct investment (FDI) into developing economies—a key propellant of economic growth and higher living standards—have dwindled to the lowest level since 2005 amid rising trade and investment barriers, new research from the World Bank shows. These barriers pose a significant threat to global efforts to mobilize financing for development.

In 2023, the latest year for which data are available, developing economies received just $435 billion in FDI—the lowest level since 2005. That coincides with a global trend in which FDI flows into advanced economies have also slowed to a trickle: high-income economies received just $336 billion in 2023, the lowest level since 1996. As a share of their GDP, FDI inflows to developing economies in 2023 were just 2.3 percent, about half the number during the peak year of 2008.

“What we’re seeing is a result of public policy,” said Indermit Gill, the World Bank Group’s Chief Economist and Senior Vice President. “It’s not a coincidence that FDI is plumbing new lows at the same time that public debt is reaching record highs. Private investment will now have to power economic growth, and FDI happens to be one of the most productive forms of private investment. Yet, in recent years governments have been busy erecting barriers to investment and trade when they should be deliberately taking them down. They will have to ditch that bad habit.” 

From June 30 to July 3, representatives of governments, international institutions, civil society organizations, and the private sector are scheduled to meet in Seville, Spain, to discuss how to mobilize the financing that will be needed to achieve key global and national development goals.  The new analysis from the World Bank highlights the policies that will be needed to achieve those goals at a time when economic growth has slowed to a crawl, public debt has surged to record highs, and foreign-aid budgets have shrunk. Easing investment restrictions will be a key first step: so far in 2025, half of all FDI-related measures announced by governments in developing economies have been restrictive measures—the highest share since 2010.

“With the global community gearing up for the Conference on Financing for Development, the sharp drop in FDI to developing economies should sound alarm bells,” said M. Ayhan Kose, the World Bank Group’s Deputy Chief Economist and Director of the Prospects Group. “Reversing this slowdown is not just an economic imperative—it’s essential for job creation, sustained growth, and achieving broader development goals. It will require bold domestic reforms to improve the business climate and decisive global cooperation to revive cross-border investment.” 

Investment treaties tend to boost FDI flows between signatory states by more than 40%, the analysis finds. Between 2010 and 2024, just 380 new investment treaties came into force, barely a third of the 1990s number. Similarly, the report finds that countries that are more open to trade tend to receive more FDI—an extra 0.6% in FDI for each percentage-point increase in the trade-to-GDP ratio. However, the number of new trade agreements signed over the past decade dropped in half—from an average of 11 per year in the 2010s to just six in the 2020s. 

In 2023, FDI accounted for roughly half of the external financing flows received by developing economies. Under the right conditions, it is a strong spur to economic growth: analysis of data from 74 developing economies between 1995 and 2019 suggests that a 10% increase in FDI inflows generates a 0.3% increase in real GDP after three years. The impact is nearly three times larger—up to 0.8%—in countries with stronger institutions, better human capital, greater openness to trade, and lower informality. By the same token, the effect of FDI increases is much smaller in countries that lack such features.

FDI tends to be concentrated in the largest economies. Between 2012 and 2023, about two-thirds of FDI flows to developing economies went to just 10 countries, with China receiving nearly a third of the total and Brazil and India receiving roughly 10% and 6% respectively. The 26 poorest countries received barely 2% of the total. Advanced economies, moreover, accounted for nearly 90% of the total FDI in developing economies over the past decade. About half of that came from just two sources: the European Union and the United States.

The report identifies three policy priorities for developing economies.

First, redouble efforts to attract FDI. Easing FDI restrictions that have accumulated over the last decade would be a good start. So would speeding up improvements in the investment climate, which have stalled in many countries over the past decade. Strong macroeconomic outcomes—healthy growth and rising labor productivity—also help accelerate FDI flows, the analysis shows. An increase of 1% in a country’s labor productivity, for example, is associated with an increase of 0.7% in FDI inflows.

Second, amplify the economic benefits of FDI. Promoting trade integration, improving the quality of institutions, fostering human capital development, and encouraging more people to participate in the formal economy increase the benefits of FDI. Governments can also amplify the benefits by channeling FDI to sectors where the impact is greatest. FDI can also help increase job opportunities for women: the domestic affiliates of multinational enterprises, for example, tend to have a higher share of female employees than domestic firms.

Third, advance global cooperation. All countries should work together to accelerate policy initiatives that can help direct FDI flows to developing economies with the largest investment gaps. Especially in a time of high geopolitical tensions, the World Bank and other international institutions have a crucial role to play in supporting a rules-based order. Technical and financial assistance to support structural reform efforts in developing countries—especially low-income countries—are critical for facilitating FDI inflows. The World Bank Group, the world’s largest development bank, is playing a key role in mobilizing private capital—by creating instruments that lower financial risks for investors, by helping to improve market conditions in developing economies, and by scaling up its engagement with the private sector.

Culled from the World Bank

Cameroon ranks third in global Kola Nut production

12, June 2025

Cameroon ranks third in global Kola Nut production 0

Cameroon’s kola nut production has hovered around 48,500 tons annually over the past five years, accounting for 15.4% of global output. This places the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC) economic powerhouse as the world’s third-largest kola nut producer, according to Tridge, an agricultural market intelligence and food product trade platform.

Cameroon trails Nigeria and Côte d’Ivoire, the top two international suppliers of the product. Tridge data indicates that Nigeria, the West African giant, produced 174,100 tonnes in 2022, representing 55.2% of global production. Côte d’Ivoire’s output in 2022 reached 58,640 tonnes, or 18.6% of the world total.

The global top five kola nut producers are completed by two other African nations. Ghana ranks fourth, with a 7.8% market share and 24,643 tonnes produced in 2022. Sierra Leone follows, with 8,450 tonnes during the review period, accounting for 2.7% of the global kola nut market.

Analysts predict that these five market leaders will see increased returns from kola nut cultivation in the coming years due to rising demand. A study published in April 2025 by Cognitive Market Research, cited by Ecofin Agency, estimates the kola nut market to be worth $119 million (approximately 65 billion CFA francs) in 2025. The study projects the market to grow by an average of 3.3% annually through 2033.

This anticipated surge in the global kola nut market is fueled by the diversification of its uses. While traditionally consumed in its raw form across many African countries, market analysts note a growing demand for kola nut in the agri-food industry, cosmetics, and traditional medicine.

Kola nut exports are not explicitly listed in Cameroon’s 2022 and 2023 foreign trade reports, published by the National Institute of Statistics (INS). However, this does not necessarily mean the country has no exports of the product. It is plausible that, similar to other agricultural goods like cotton, cereals, and even cocoa, Cameroonian kola nuts are exported through informal channels to Nigeria, the world’s leading producer. Cameroon shares a long and porous border of approximately 1,500 km with Nigeria.

Despite probable informal exports, as well as local consumption and still-limited artisanal processing, which are the primary uses of kola nut in Cameroon, the forecasted growth in this product presents a significant opportunity for both industry stakeholders and public authorities to better position kola nut on the national and international economic stage.

Source: Business in Cameroon

Global Economy Set for Weakest Run Since 2008 Outside of Recessions 

10, June 2025

Global Economy Set for Weakest Run Since 2008 Outside of Recessions  0

Heightened trade tensions and policy uncertainty are expected to drive global growth down this year to its slowest pace since 2008 outside of outright global recessions, according to the World Bank’s latest Global Economic Prospects report. The turmoil has resulted in growth forecasts being cut in nearly 70% of all economies—across all regions and income groups.

Global growth is projected to slow to 2.3 percent in 2025, nearly half a percentage point lower than the rate that had been expected at the start of the year. A global recession is not expected. Nevertheless, if forecasts for the next two years materialize, average global growth in the first seven years of the 2020s will be the slowest of any decade since the 1960s. 

“Outside of Asia, the developing world is becoming a development-free zone. said Indermit Gill, the World Bank Group’s Chief Economist and Senior Vice President for Development Economics. “It has been advertising itself for more than a decade. Growth in developing economies has ratcheted down for three decades—from 6 percent annually in the 2000s to 5 percent in the 2010s—to less than 4 percent in the 2020s. That tracks the trajectory of growth in global trade, which has fallen from an average of 5 percent in the 2000s to about 4.5 percent in the 2010s—to less than 3 percent in the 2020s. Investment growth has also slowed, but debt has climbed to record levels.”

Growth is expected to slow in nearly 60 percent of all developing economies this year, averaging 3.8 percent in 2025 before edging up to an average of 3.9 percent over 2026 and 2027. That is more than a percentage point lower than the average of the 2010s. Low-income countries are expected to grow 5.3 percent this year—a downgrade of 0.4 percentage point from the forecast at the start of 2025. Tariff increases and tight labor markets are also exerting upward pressure on global inflation, which, at a projected average of 2.9 percent in 2025, remains above pre-pandemic levels.

Slowing growth will impede developing economies in their efforts to spur job creation, reduce extreme poverty, and close per capita income gaps with advanced economies. Per capita income growth in developing economies is projected to be 2.9 percent in 2025—1.1 percentage points below the average between 2000 and 2019. Assuming developing economies other than China are able to sustain an overall GDP growth of 4 percent—the rate forecast for 2027—it would take them about two decades to return to their pre-pandemic trajectory with respect to economic output.

Global growth could rebound faster than expected if major economies are able to mitigate trade tensions—which would reduce overall policy uncertainty and financial volatility. The analysis finds that if today’s trade disputes were resolved with agreements that halve tariffs relative to their levels in late May, global growth would be 0.2 percentage point stronger on average over the course of 2025 and 2026. 

“Emerging-market and developing economies reaped the rewards of trade integration but now find themselves on the frontlines of a global trade conflict,” said M. Ayhan Kose, the World Bank’s Deputy Chief Economist and Director of the Prospects Group. “The smartest way to respond is to redouble efforts on integration with new partners, advance pro-growth reforms, and shore up fiscal resilience to weather the storm. With trade barriers rising and uncertainty mounting, renewed global dialogue and cooperation can chart a more stable and prosperous path forward.”

The report argues that in the face of rising trade barriers, developing economies should seek to liberalize more broadly by pursuing strategic trade and investment partnerships with other economies and diversifying trade—including through regional agreements. Given limited government resources and rising development needs, policymakers should focus on mobilizing domestic revenues, prioritizing fiscal spending for the most vulnerable households, and strengthening fiscal frameworks. 

 Finally, to accelerate economic growth, countries will need to improve business climates and promote productive employment by equipping workers with the necessary skills and creating the conditions for labor markets to efficiently match workers and firms. Global collaboration will be crucial in supporting the most vulnerable developing economies, including through multilateral interventions, concessional financing, and, for countries embroiled in active conflicts, emergency relief and support.

Source: World Bank

Cameroon welcomes new Cement brand Cimaco

10, June 2025

Cameroon welcomes new Cement brand Cimaco 0

The Cameroonian cement market is set to welcome a new brand, Cimaco, starting in June 2025. This news was announced in an advertisement by Chinese-owned Sinafcam Sarl, which produces the cement in Edéa, located in Cameroon’s Littoral region. For its market debut, Sinafcam is introducing three product grades: 32.5, 42.5, and 52.5. The plant currently has an annual production capacity of one million tons.

Sinafcam’s entry brings the total number of cement producers in Cameroon to seven. This expansion comes a decade after Cimenteries du Cameroun (Cimencam), a subsidiary of Lafarge Holcim Maroc Afrique (LHMA), ended its 48-year monopoly. Cimencam, with a production capacity of 2.3 million tons, faced its first significant challenge with the arrival of Dangote Cement Cameroon in 2015, paving the way for several new entrants since then.

Current producers include Nigeria’s Dangote Cement (1.5 million tons); Moroccan firm Cimaf, which recently tripled its original output of 500,000 tons through a plant expansion; Medcem Cameroon (600,000 tons), a subsidiary of Turkey’s Eren Holding; Mira Company, which increased its capacity from 1 million to 1.5 million tons with a new production line commissioned in June 2022; and Portuguese group Cimpor (1 million tons).

Additionally, the Ministry of Industry anticipates two more Chinese cement plants in Edéa: Central Africa Cement (CAC) is projected to produce 1.5 million tons annually, while Yousheng Cement aims for 1.8 million tons.

Despite a decade-long surge in cement production facilities, the retail price for a 50kg bag of cement remains high, hovering between 5,100 and 5,300 CFA francs in major cities like Douala and Yaoundé. Both producers and government officials attribute these high prices to the elevated cost of importing clinker, the primary ingredient in cement production.

However, with prices showing little movement despite increased supply, Trade Minister Luc Magloire Mbarga Atangana has repeatedly voiced suspicions of “illegal price-fixing agreements” among producers.

Source: Business in Cameroon

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