(Business in Cameroon) - Cameroon’s customs revenues were estimated at CFA336.2 billion at the end of June 2017 against CFA346.8 billion for June 2016, official sources revealed. This constitutes a year-to-year drop of CFA10.6 billion (-3, 1%).

“This underperformance could be mainly due to imports’ decline and, at a lesser extent, to the enforcement of the Economic Partnership Agreement. Cameroon’s government thus lost around CFA400 million between January and June 2017”, custom officials explained. This revenue is down the 2017’s targeted CFA399.8 billion result by CFA63.6 billion (an 84.1% achievement rate).

To reach the targeted annual revenue, custom officials indicated that they have taken some measures to catch up with the result. The measures are mainly about the collection and control services’ efficiency improvement, the fight against fraud and smuggling and the monitoring of custom duties and taxes’ collection under the state budget.

The Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between Cameroon and the European Union was operational since august 4, 2016. Since that day, 1, 760 European products, affected by the removal of fiscal and Customs barriers, can access Cameroon’s market freely and benefit from a 25% custom tax reduction every year. From 2020, they will access Cameroon without custom charges.

S.A