Promotion des Investissements : opportunités indiennes

You took part at the just-ended India-Africa Partnership Conclave held in India from 20 to 22 August. How fruitful was this mission?
Effectively, the Investment Promotion Agency of Cameroon (IPA) participated in the sixteenth Africa-India conclave which is an annual event bringing together, rich and diverse bunch of investors from India and the sub-region, together with Indian authorities and some Heads of State, especially from African countries. This is a forum which seeks to promote bilateral trade and investments between India and Africa. The tendency these days have been within the continent for various countries to handle conclaves just like that of Commonwealth, Francophonie, US Business Africa Forum among others. The difference with India is that, it is one of the most populous countries in the globe alongside China and India is doing an absolutely fantastic job in leveraging the population, especially the poor portion, to lift them up from this flea. So this conclave gives the opportunity to see how aggressive Indian business men can be when they want to look for business and seal partnerships.

So what particularly took Cameroon to the conclave?
We went there with the idea of selling our structural development plan (SND-30) and the national development plan which has as its comportment on import-substitution. We actually reflected on valuable solutions to attract Indian investors in trade business within the rice, fishery, milk and maize sectors. These are things India already produces and transforms to a great scale. As you know, Cameroon thus tries to attract as much foreign investors and salesmen as possible. Our country has 39.6 million hectares of arable land but only 1.6 million is used. Our target at the level of the Investment Promotion Agency is to turn the tides in our own way. We have been working on it for a long time and it has not been easy at all. We identified India as one of the places where we had to go, not only because of the technology they have but also because they have the potential in terms of equipment and know- how amongst others. That is why meeting these serious and aggressive Indian investors which are very interested in Africa was a golden opportunity for us. We are glad today to share the experience gotten from our collaboration with the Indian Embassy in New Delhi, trying to identify sixty (60) businesses and companies within the agricultural sector and others, who through the Indian Chamber of Commerce, have taken a decision to come and to continue our discussions and secure investments in Cameroon. We are very satisfied with what we did till now and can say our participation was also aimed at selling our country Cameroon as an interesting investment destination. We had a Cameroonian day which focused only on local goods and opportunities.

Have there been any firm commitments?
We will not say there are firm commitments per say. There are instead firm engagements of coming to Cameroon and seeing how prolific the business environment is constituted. You know, the investment cycle is not easy. Decisions on investment are not taken on the first encounter. You need time to see and evaluate all the potentials because your money is involved. Usually, investors first carry out a prospection on the field to make sure everything concerning his investment and revenue is out of danger. At times, such a process can take three to four years before the investor takes a full-...