(Business in Cameroon) - According to the statistics revealed by the General Manager of the Douala Autonomous Port (PAD), Emmanuel Etoundi Oyono, the volume of Central African and Chadian goods which transited through the Douala Port during 2015 "went over the one million ton mark". This volume, the MD of PAD highlighted, had decreased from 2013, due in part to the "insecurity" in Northern Cameroon, the region bordering Chad and Nigeria, and in the Eastern region, which shares a long border with CAR.

This traffic with Chad and CAR is however a tiny fraction of the impor-export operations carried out at the Douala Port in 2015, a year during which the traffic in this port increased by 4%, to reach 11.3 million tons, Emmanuel Etoundi Oyono indicated.

This volume of traffic exceeds by over one million tons the capacities of this port, estimated at 10 million tons in a report published on 7 July 2014 by the National Port Authority (APN). "The Douala Port was created for a traffic of 10,000,000 tons. The current traffic surpassing this volume, the port is thus technically operating in sub-capacity", APN noted relating to the 2013 traffic, which peaked at 10.6 million tons.

While awaiting the commissioning of the deep water port of Kribi, announced for this year, the Douala Port represents on its own 99% of the entire maritime traffic in the country, also note by APN in the above-mentioned report.

Brice R. Mbodiam