PARTNERSHIP PAUL BIYA: MISSION(S) ACCOMPLISHED

In a groundbreaking new role, the president travels abroad to meet his counterparts and their countries’ investors in order to strengthen strategic trade relationships.

In the past few months the head of State has shaken many hands and smiled at many faces on business trips abroad to meet investors and CEOs. The scene took place 17 times in February, starting with French president François Hollande. During his trip to France, Mr. Biya spoke with a host of business leaders who queued up to meet him, including Gimmy Ricci, CEO of Crafts Contractors International; Alexandre Vilgrain, President of the French Council of Investors in Africa and CEO of Somdiaa; Benoît Coquelet, Managing Director of Somdiaa; Clara Gaymard, head of General Electric France; Yannick Morillon, CEO of the Geocoton group and Managing Director of Advens; Vincent Bolloré, CEO of the group bearing his surname; and Olivier Stirn, a partner in Edifice Capital.

Before this flurry of meetings, President Biya went to the headquarters of MEDEF, France’s biggest employers’ organisation, to win over French investors and present the reforms under way to attract them. Their strong mobilisation for a whole day undoubtedly demonstrates their increasing interest. “Cameroon is moving ahead against all odds,” the president told them during the presentation of the Growth and Employment Strategy Document. “It knows that to reach its goals, it will need outside partnerships with governments or private companies.It also knows that everybody must get something out of them in a win-win relationship.”

The choice of Paris as the first stop was natural: France is still the country’s main economic partner. French multinationals have approximately 100 subsidiaries in Cameroon, where French citizens own some 200 companies in areas such as oil, forestry, cash crops, sugar, brewing, cement plants, mobile telephony, rail logistics and transport, banking and insurance.

The French Development Agency (AFD), which is also very active in Cameroon, finances many projects, notably through sovereign subsidized loans. The most recent ones involve the €60-million rehabilitation of the eastern entrance to Douala and construction of the second bridge over the Wouri in Douala for €100 million. Other major projects are under way in the energy sector.

COOPERATION WITH TURKEY

In late March President Biya headed a large delegation of officials and businessmen on a mission to Ankara, where he met his counterpart Abdullah Gül, who visited Cameroon three years ago. Their talks led to the signature of seven cooperation agreements in areas as varied as defence, tourism, the audiovisual industry, training, mining, energy and hydrocarbons. Mr. Biya spent two days in Ankara before attending the Cameroon-Turkey Economic Forum in Istanbul organised by the Turkish Confederation of Businessmen and Industrialists (TUSKON).

In front of 500 people, mostly industrialists, investors and entrepreneurs, the Cameroonian president recalled his country’s strategic location next to Nigeria and in the heart of the Economic and Monetary Community of Central African States (CEMAC), a potential market of 300 million consumers. That prospect has aroused Turkey’s interest in Africa for several years, and today Cameroon is one of its leading partners: the estimated volume of trade between the two countries is now put at 80 billion FCFA (around €122 million). Official Cameroonian sources say the figure could triple by 2015.

By François BAMBOU