businessincameroon.com

The Cameroonian government will soon publish its "Strategy for Growth and Employment" which contrasts with previous prescriptions of the IMF, giving priority to major infrastructure projects and business support.

Louis Paul Motaze: in this new scheme, we must first create wealth before redistributing.

By François Bambou, Yaoundé

Having developed four years ago a document strategy for reducing poverty, led by the IMF and World Bank, the Cameroon government will soon make public a new direction of economic policy. This 'Strategy for Growth and Development', developed by Louis Paul Motaze, Minister of Economy, Planning and Regional Landscaping, part of the admission of failure of the strategy advocated by the IMF consisting to aggressively move spending towards social sectors, often with no real impact on the area shown, and especially no impact on economic growth. For example, thousands of classrooms were built, as well as clinics to blow billions, even though there were no teachers or nurses recruited. From an economic point of view, performance remained below expectations of government, reflecting the fact, according to the government' view that this method was not effective because the cost that could boost investment and production of goods were not made. In the new scheme, it is above all the increase in production prior to redistribute it.

Improving companies' profitability

Mr. Motaze therefore advocates the concentration of large public investment in productive sectors to encourage investors and improve corporate profitability: "We will place a special emphasis on communications infrastructure and transportation, energy and telecommunications in order to lower input costs and facilitate the evacuation of our products to consumer markets. However, we won't relax the effort of state investment in the social sectors (education and health especially, but also in sports) to preserve and sustainably improve the quality of human resources of the Nation", he explained recently in the government media. For example, for the energy sector alone, the state will invest 5.853 billion FCFA in the next ten years to meet the national energy demand and export it to neighboring countries like Chad, Equatorial Guineea and eastern Nigeria. It is necessary to build new infrastructure, such as a deep-sea port at which the work will start soon and the loop highway Douala - Yaoundé - Bafoussam - Douala. The state also intends to have in use by 2020 up to 3500 km of bitumen roads and build an additional 1000 km railway to evacuate the mine to the port where the products go to export.

Public-private partnerships

Other areas chosen by Louis-Paul Motaze, to attract foreign private investment and domestic "We will also pursue a more ambitious policy of attracting direct foreign investments in the fields, including mining and processing minerals, but also in agro-industry, energy, building and construction of major infrastructure, shortly, in the areas requiring high capital intensity. We have to do now, an appropriate legal framework to develop these public-private partnerships."

Regarding the policy of promoting domestic-private investment, it is based on an approach path. The development plan of local private sector in particular aim to promote growth and diversification of production, improving competitiveness, integration of various segments of the industry and export development through the revival of Private investment. It is in fact a new development strategy targeted to improve the competitiveness of high potential sectors (oil, mining and agricultural sectors, wood drill, tourism, ICT, cotton textiles and clothing). This, through the implementation of a critical mass of interventions in the sectors identified (reforms, incentives, investment in infrastructure, business support etc).

List of major priority projects