Cameroonian industries lack competition

Cameroon's industrial sector posted a growth rate oscillating between -2% and 2%, according to statistics between 2000 and 2011.

In 2014, the National Institute of Statistics showed a trade deficit of FCAF 1.7027 trillion, excluding crude oil.

"With the commercial opening, Cameroonian industries are sealed by imports," revealed the Mutations newspaper on Monday, November 16, 2015. Manufacturing industries are most affected by these imports. According to Wafo Emmanuel, president of the Industry Grouping Interpatronal Protection Committee of Cameroon "41% of manufactured goods are imported."

The newspaper noted that despite a "positive tremor" in recent months, driven by agribusiness and cement, including the start of production of plants Cimaf and Dangote, the activities of industries are still idle."

Beyond foreign competition, the lethargy of the Cameroonian industry is due to several factors.

"Unfavourable production costs (which are due to technological backwardness), inadequate technical and managerial capacity, low productivity, high dependence on inputs, and supply difficulties. The limited industrial zones, financing, transport (5133 km of paved roads against 77500 Km), untimely power cuts red tape, taxation, counterfeiting and smuggling," it read.

To bring the Cameroonian industrial sector, the private sector recommends certain measures for the promotion and protection. "The state must in the short term, improve the business climate through the reforms that are underway, protect the industry by means of tariff barriers and direct subsidies in fields such as technology and innovation, vocational training, production, investment and exports," said Emmanuel Wafo.

In the long term, the private sector calls for "the promotion of subcontracting, the establishment of industrial competitiveness poles and a guarantee instrument".