(Business in Cameroon) - Cameroon will soon have a new airline operating its skies. The country granted an airline operating permit to the Tunisian private airline Express Air Cargo, as reported yesterday by the Tunisian ambassador, Karim Ben Becher, at the opening of a Cameroon-Tunisia business forum in Yaoundé.

This authorization is the materialization of an ambition that Express Air Cargo has been pursuing for the past five years. Indeed, in 2018, the airline -leader in air freight in Tunisia, had announced the opening of 25 new all-cargo flight routes, mainly connecting Tunis to Central and West Africa, starting in January of that year. As part of its African expansion, the company aimed to serve the main countries in the sub-region from Douala.

"To ensure this traffic, four new aircraft will strengthen our fleet during the first half of 2018. A Boeing 737-400 will be deployed from Tunis by the end of January and will operate a daily flight to Central and West Africa. The other three aircraft will be based, one in Douala, Cameroon, and the other two in Guinea Conakry. From Douala, the goal is to connect Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Congo, and the DRC," said its CEO, Anis Riahi, at the time.

Founded in 2015, Express Air Cargo aims to provide regular and daily services connecting 15 African countries to major European cities using its fleet of Boeing 737 aircraft. The forthcoming deployment of Express Air Cargo in Cameroon represents a "new step" towards the consolidation of economic and trade relations between Tunis and Yaoundé, according to Karim Ben Becher.

Trade between the two countries has increased by 25% between 2020 and 2022, rising from €28 million (over CFA18.3 billion) to €35 million (about CFA23 billion), according to reliable sources. Cameroon has become Tunisia's fourth-largest trading partner in sub-Saharan Africa and the top partner in Central Africa, according to the same sources. To further boost these exchanges, Tunisair, the Tunisian national airline, is actively working to launch a direct air route between Tunisia and Cameroon.