Cameroon’s Minister of the Small and Medium-size Enterprises, Social Economy and Handicrafts, Laurent Serge Etoundi Ngoa, has said that government requested Japan, through the Japan International Cooperation Agency, JICA, to create development centres for small and medium-size enterprises in the country.

Cameroon Tribune quotes the Minister as saying that “Government had solicited Japan for the creation of a centre for the development of SMEs in the country’s regions. Given that the Head of State has already created the Agency for the Promotion of SMEs, the programme of the centre can work within the framework of the agency.”

And to ascertain that all was in place for the centres, JICA’s Director for Africa, Inui Eiji, held discussions with Minister Etoundi Ngoa on Thursday October 24, 2013 in the Minister’s office. “The Director came to ascertain that the agency has been created, that a link is created between the functioning of agency and the bank for SMEs and above all, to be sure that aid that Japan will give through JICA to the agency and the bank is judiciously used,” the Minister is quoted as saying.

Saluting what he said is government’s engagement, the JICA Africa Director said, “There are a lot of possibilities to develop SMEs in Cameroon because there are good natural resources and high initiative by the government. Also, Cameroon has good human resources. We hope that we will have good results when we will begin the training of stakeholders of SMEs.”

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A five-day workshop to boost the development of aquaculture in Cameroon began on September 23, in Yaoundé under the patronage of the Minister of Livestock, Fisheries and Animal Industries, Dr. Taiga.

According to the Director of Fisheries and Aquaculture in the Ministry of Livestock, Fisheries and Animal Industries, Dr. Belal Emma in a recent workshop in Yaounde, the country spends over FCFA 100 billion to import almost half (200,000) metric tons of fish it consumes annually.

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