(Business in Cameroon) - Société Anonyme des brasseries du Cameroun (SABC), leader of the Cameroonian brewing market, plans to launch the second phase of its XAF90 billion investment project this year. According to internal sources, the firm intends to invest most of the envelope in the construction of two new plants: a second corn processing plant in the Noun and a brewery in the Eastern region.
"We also intend to acquire new infrastructures for the sustained external growth of SABC , Socaver (Société Camerounaise de Verrerie) and CFC (Compagnie fermière du Cameroun). The ambition is to accelerate our vertical integration to develop an extremely efficient and competitive agro-industrial model and face future challenges related to our size and autonomy. The model will be based on local systems and the circular economy," explains Emmanuel de Tailly, CEO of the SABC group.
Demand for Tax Exemptions
Authorized sources explain that the successful implementation of this investment plan will depend on the support provided by the Cameroonian government. "After all the investments made during the first phase (Ed.note: about XAF45 billion) of our investment plan, for the second phase, the state can be supportive by recognizing us as the national agribusiness champion we are,” a source close to the case explains.
Indeed, in preparation for the second phase, SABC submitted a request to the government for eligibility to the benefits provided by the 2013 private investment law in the Republic of Cameroon. The law, amended in 2017, offers companies with investment projects (whether already in operations or setting up operations) with tax and customs exemptions for over five to ten years.
"We chose to invest in Cameroon, instead of going with our initial plan to invest XAF13 billion in Angola or Côte d'Ivoire, because of the law providing investment incentives in Cameroon,” revealed Guillaume Sarra, an economic operator who launched BVS, a wine and spirits manufacturing company, in Douala in 2017.
84,000 jobs...
Beneficiaries of the investment law include Tractafric Equipment for its civil engineering machinery assembly plant in Kribi. There is also Nestlé Cameroon which invested XAF2.7 billion in a new production line at a factory in Bonabéri, and British investment fund Actis, which built the Douala Grand Mall presented as the largest commercial and leisure infrastructure in Central Africa in partnership with a local partner.
Since 2014, “248 investment agreements have been signed by the government and the private sector (...). The overall investment projects covered by the agreements are XAF4,048 billion and the estimated number of direct jobs to be created is 84,000,” said Marthe Angeline Mindja, director-general of the API in charge of the implementation of the 2013 law, on July 13, 2021.
Brice R. Mbodiam