Cameroon's productive apparatus operates in a climate of intense competitive pressures.

Addressing a gathering of professionals and institutional actors, the president of the employers' group, Célestin Tawamba, highlighted the bottlenecks undermining industrial activity, foremost among them the precariousness of electricity supply and the persistent degradation of subregional transport corridors.


The energy issue remains one of the major Achilles' heels of industrial competitiveness. According to data relayed by the employers' organization, nearly two-thirds of formal enterprises are forced to rely on self-generation via diesel generators to preserve operational continuity. This stopgap measure generates unit production costs ranging from 200 to 350 FCFA per kilowatt-hour, an exorbitant differential compared to conventional industrial grid tariffs. Although the commissioning of new hydroelectric infrastructure has certainly expanded overall potential, the insufficiency of transport and distribution networks deprives production units of the expected benefits, maintaining pressure on corporate margins.


To this constraint is added logistical asphyxiation weighing on goods flows. Failures in the railway network and the condition of major road axes fuel increasingly heavy transport costs toward domestic and border markets. Such an operational uncertainty climate is compounded by a drastic contraction in public procurement.


While the finance law displayed marked ambitions for infrastructure support, executive data indicate a sharp drop in investment disbursements in the first quarter, reflecting the persistent gap between structural transformation objectives and budgetary realities on the ground.


Asaba

Tags: cameroun gecam économie énergie transport industrie concurrence investissement infrastructures électricité