(Business in Cameroon) - Microfinance company ACEP Cameroon, specialised in the financing of very small businesses, closed its project "secondary towns" in December 2016 with an amount of financing in favour of rural entrepreneurs estimated at FCfa 8.5 billion, being 10% of overall outstanding loans of this financing institution, we are told officially. Out of this total amount, ACEP Cameroon specifies FCfa 2.5 billion has gone to farm operators.

The project "secondary towns", launched in 2012 with the financial support of Agence Française de Développement (AFD), consisted in extending the activities of this microfinance structure to the rural areas of Cameroon. Given that at the end of the pilot phase of this project, more than 8000 entrepreneurs received financial assistance from ACEP Cameroon, of which more than 2500 are farm operators. This project that the microfinance structure counts on sustaining from now on, in view of the positive results obtained during the pilot phase, has also allowed rural entrepreneurs to generate a deposit amount of FCfa 437 million at the end of 2016, thanks to "the savings habit initiated" by the above-mentioned project.

Created from a Cameroonian government project implemented by the then Ministry of Industrial and Commercial Development, with the support of AFD and the European Union; ACEP Cameroon's main shareholders are ACEP International, Société Nationale d’Investissements (SNI), Banque Internationale du Cameroun pour l’Épargne et le Crédit (BICEC), the Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Crafts (Chambre de Commerce de l’Industrie, des Mines et de l’Artisanat - CCIMA) and Investisseurs et Partenaires (I&P).

BRM