Guinness CMR invests 3b CFA francs in sorghum project

Guinness Cameroon, subsidiary of the British Brewer Diageo has injected a total of 3 billion Cfa francs in an investment programme since 2009 to boost the production of sorghum.

This was learned during a tour organized by the brewing company, November 4, 2014 in the city of Douala. Through this investment, we officially learn that malting society number 2 in the Cameroonian market for alcoholic beverages, behind the Castel group which plans to reduce to 50% by 2015, the volume of its imports of raw materials, currently estimated at 80%.

They wish to gradually substitute the cereals imported such as malt by local products like sorghum, which the quantities purchased by Guinness to producers of northern Cameroon since 2009, oscillating between 250 and 400 tonnes per year, according to Mariam Haman Adama, Coordinator of the regional Council peasant organizations of northern Cameroon (CROPSEC).

In December 2013, Guinness Cameroon signed with the Ministry of Agriculture, a partnership in which the company committed to local sourcing in cassava, maize and sorghum for the investment and development project of agricultural markets (PIDMA), established by the Government of Cameroon, and funded to the tune of 50 billion Cfa francs thanks to assistance from the World Bank.

Thus putting the cap on local raw materials, the company aims not only at the substantial reduction of production costs, but also the admission of preferential customs regimes in force in CEMAC areas (economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa) and ECCAS (economic community of Central African States), two community spaces to which Cameroon belongs.

Indeed, these two sub-regional organizations have special licences to companies using at least 40% of local raw materials in their products, to export goods free of customs duties in the six and ten countries that comprise, respectively, CEMAC and ECCAS.