(Business in Cameroon) - Forty journalists of the Cameroonian press and correspondents from local agencies and international newspapers met in the Presse économique du Cameroun association (Presse Eco) , were trained from August 21-22, 2014 in the city of Kribi, in the South, in oil price regulatory mechanisms in that country. The training session was held by the Hydrocarbon Fuel Price Stabilisation Fund (CSPH), surrounding the general theme of “challenges and stakes of oil product price regulation on oil product prices in Cameroon.”

The training was framed around presentations on the CSPH’s missions, Cameroon’s downstream oil sector, the international system for the sale of oil products, the current state of the Cameroonian oil market and its outlook for the future, mechanisms for determining oil pricing, the mechanisms and weight of oil product subsidies in Cameroon, transport equalisation and the impact of hydrocarbon fuels on the economy in general.

Presse Eco president, François Bambou (photo) finds that this window to the specificities of the downstream oil sector, at times unknown to media professionals has enabled the press to better understand the June 30, 2014 decision taken by the Caeroonian government to raise oil product prices at the pump (except kerosene oil).

A body of Cameroonian media professionals focusing essentially on economic affairs, Presse Eco is striving to improve the quality of the economic news available on Cameroon thanks to the strengthening of its members’ capacities to handle major topics related to national and international economy.

Before the CSPH, Cameroon’s economic press had already received two training sessions provided by the Directorate General of Customs on the protection of Cameroon’s national economic space and the Douala Port’s competitiveness, a training session with the Directorate General of the Treasury on new financing mechanisms for the State budget, the Economic Affairs Directorate on mechanisms for the development of the balance of payments as well as a session on EPAs provided by the local European Union delegation.