(Business in Cameroon) - The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), the non-concessional arm of the World Bank group (WB) will release an amount of FCfa 113 billion in favour of the State of Cameroon, reveals a Presidential decree signed on 17 April 2017 by President Biya, text which authorises the Minister of Economy, Louis Paul Motazé, to contract this loan on behalf of the Cameroonian State. The said loan was approved by the Administrative Council of the WB on October 2016.

The funds that will thus be made available by the IBRD will be used to finance the transport sector, in which the government and its partners have been leading several projects since the year 2012. It will also be used for the rehabilitation as well as construction of national and transnational transportation routes, rehabilitation of the railways and upgrading equipment, or also improving the country's port infrastructure.

As a reminder, it was in October 2013, during the General Assembly meetings of the IMF and World Bank in Washington, that the Cameroonian State expressed its desire to be able to benefit from IBRD financing from then on. Following this request of the Cameroonian authorities, a World Bank mission led by Véronique Kessler, principal economist at the World Bank, made a visit to Cameroon in November 2013, in order to look at an eventual eligibility of the country to IBRD financing. Eligibility which occurred in the month of April 2014, and was announced by the Cameroonian government in an official communiqué.

The IBRD is the second window of financing of the World Bank group that has opened to the Cameroon State, after the window IDA (International Development Association). The only difference being that IDA loans are granted at concessional rates (generally lower than 1%) while IBRD loans are non concessional but are equally repayable in the long term (25 to 38 years with deferred payments of 5 to 10 years).

Brice R. Mbodiam

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