(Business in Cameroon) - On January 14, 2020, Chad's Minister of Economy and Development Planning, Issa Doubragne, completed a five-day working visit to Cameroon. On the last day of the visit, he co-chaired a working session with his Cameroonian counterpart Alamine Ousmane Mey. The session was a bilateral consultation for the implementation of joint integrative projects aimed at improving the fluidity and continuity of traffic between the two countries.

The final statement reveals that the works and project management contracts were signed on December 31, 2019, for the construction of a bridge over the Logone River between Yagoua (Cameroon) and Bongor (Chad), and the work orders were sent on January 13, 2020. For the foundation stone laying, there are ongoing discussions for an agreement on the date and location.

All the studies of the Cameroonian sections requiring rehabilitation in Phase 1 are already available. For the Chadian sections, studies are underway and projected to be completed in April 2020.

Regarding the financing of this project, a blending mechanism between the European Union, the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the World Bank is envisaged. To this end, a grant of €30 million (about XAF20 billion) is already available from the European Union.

With regard to the project aimed at interconnecting the two countries’ electricity grids, studies for the northern interconnected network are available while those for the southern interconnected network, which will enable the completion of the financing, are underway and should be available in Q1, 2020.

SA