(Business in Cameroon) - Out of the total 51 billion FCFA allotted to build the Douala city west road, which is intended to ease traffic between Cameroon’s economic capital and the West and South West regions, 14 billion FCFA will be sub-contracted to Cameroonian SMEs.

During a visit by the Minister of Public Works on November 13, 2014 at the Douala construction sites, the company contracted to do the project, Sogea Satom, even announced that it had begun talks with local SMEs to subcontract the project and pocket 22% of the total sum.

According to Minister Amba Salla, the assignment a portion of the project to Cameroonian SMEs is a government requirement. Indeed, a part of its development policy for local SMEs involves obliging the contracted company to sub-contract at least 30% of the work to be done to local companies as they are generally ill-equipped to outcompete multinational companies for such contracts.