(Business in Cameroon) - On May 2, 2018, Cameroon issued 26-weeks maturity fungible treasury bonds on the security market of BEAC to raise CFA7 billion.

This is the third operation the country launched within 3 weeks. Indeed, on April 18, 2018, Cameroon raised CFA7 billion through the issuance of the 52- weeks maturity bonds. Days later, on April 25, it returned to the security market to raise CFA10 billion by issuing 13-weeks maturity bonds.

All these operations demonstrate the cashflow problems the country is experiencing. Moreover, even though the result of the operation on April 25 are not revealed yet, those of the previous operation on April 18 are known. They reveal that during that operation, the interest rate required by investors was 3.5% (a bit higher than the 3% they asked during the operations earlier this year). In addition, the country was not able to raise the amount it sought. During the operation, investors were willing to disburse CFA6 billion out of the CFA7 billion Cameroon initially sought, but the government decided to collect CFA5 billion (maybe because of the high-interest rates required).

Let’s note that combined with the two other operations mentioned earlier, this new one could raise the country’s debt by CFA22 billion.  

Brice R. Mbodiam