In his end of year address to the nation on 31 December 2023, the President of the Republic announced a Triennial integrated import-substitution plan: “The Three-Year Integrated Import Substitution Plan for 2024-2026 which I have instructed the Government to implement, is also part of my effort to enable our country to save on its precious resources. This plan should help to reduce the negative impact of importations on our trade balance by strengthening our food sovereignty. Its deficit is estimated at just over CFA Francs 1,500 billion per year”.
The low level of national production of goods and their processing encourages the flow of imported goods on the local market, resulting in a large trade deficit, which the National Institute of Statistics estimates at CFA Francs 1,409 billion in 2020 and CFA Francs 1,478 billion in 2021.
According to the 2023-2024 import-substitution implementation and budgeting report, in order to support its import-substitution policy, the country is planning to mobilize CFA Francs 127.5 billion in 2024, corresponding to an increase of CFA Francs 13 billion (+10%) in relation to the CFA Francs 114.5 in 2023
This huge programme aims at achieving a structural transformation of the national economy, by promoting emerging industrial initiatives, needed to strengthen production and processing of our resources, so as to reduce importations and become an exporting country. These projects constitute the Head of State’s fervent aspiration of making Cameroon an emerging country by 2035.
The Industrial Zones Development and Management Authority, as a State body in charge of developing industrial zones for production and processing, has its part to play in the implementation of the Triennial integrated import-substitution plan. The signing of a draft agreement with the Investment Promotion Agency (API) during the fourth edition of the Cameroon Investment Forum that was held in Douala from 17 to 19 April 2024, aimed at strengthening the promotion of industrial investments in Cameroon and searching for technical and financial partnerships so as to create new industrial zones. This in effect, is part of that desire to implement the Triennial integrated import-substitution plan, as defined by the President of the Republic, particularly in priority sectors of the NDS 30, which are “forestry and timber”, agro-industry, textiles, leather industry and other sectors such as rice, maize, fish, milk and oil palm.
Consequently, the Government must consider as a pressing necessity the financing of industrial