Govt acquires loan of 41b CFA francs for digital development

President of the Republic of Cameroon Paul Biya, made public on the 3rd of December 2014, a decree empowering the Minister of economy, Emmanuel Nganou Djoumessi, to sign a loan agreement of 41 billion Cfa francs with the China export-import Bank (China Eximbank) for financing of the extension project on the national backbone.

This funding, according to sources, will help build urban loops with optical fiber, in several Cameroonian cities, and thus expand the national optical fibre network, currently estimated at 6,000 Km with these ambitions "of digital developments".

Cameroon seeks to have 10,000 or 20,000 Km of fiber-optic to be able to weave all the national territory", stated the Minister of posts and telecommunications, Jean-Pierre Biyiti bi Essam, in May 2013 in Maroua, inaugurating 3,200 Km of optical fiber.

The new Eximbank funding should enable the Cameroonian State to achieve the ambition to have approximately 10,000 Km of optical fibre by 2015. Indeed, in May 2013 in Maroua, the Minister of posts and telecommunications had already announced that "the Government has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Chinese for the installation of approximately 4,000 additional optical fibre in the near future.

Trade continued for the finalisation of this loan agreement, whose objective is to allow the full coverage of all the administrative units of Cameroon.