CEMAC reflects on the best use of its mineral resources

More than 250 experts and institutional leaders took part on Tuesday in Yaoundé Cameroon, in an International Conference on extractive industries organised on the initiative of the Commission of Central Africa Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC), in partnership with Germany.

These meetings are intended to identify ways that can facilitate a better utilization of the resources of the subsoil of the six member countries (Cameroon, Congo, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Central African Republic and Chad) of CEMAC.

As explained by the president of the Commission for this regional organization, Pierre Moussa, "the purpose of this meeting is to sensitize managers and the people of the sub-region on the fact that there is a strategic resource that is going to be a very important sector for their development, to their accession to the emergence and so they have the imperative duty to manage it better".

It is a meeting of exchanges and debate punctuated by work in workshops to "enhance the skills of our experts from the sub-region in contracting, governance on issues of mines, mining projects pilotage", continued the former Congolese Minister of finance.

Central Africa is a famous region rich in mineral resources, which constitute an important part of the economies of the region. "Moreover, 40% of our exports have their origin in the extractive sector," stressed the Secretary of Cameroonian State to the Minister of Mines, industry and technological development, Fuh Gentry Calistus.

It is mostly oil that dominates these savings. And after a recent estimate of the Banque des États de l'Afrique centrale (BEAC), it represented 35.6% of regional GDP, 56.1% of budgetary revenues and 69.1% of export earnings.