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Interview with Marthe Angeline Minja, Director General of the Investment Promotion Agency (API). This manager, trained at the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and the Neuilly-sur-Seine Business School, is responsible for promoting Cameroon as a destination to investors.
What services does the API offer to foreign investors?
The creation of the API by presidential decree in 2005 and its reorganization in 2019 effectively reflect the desire of the Cameroonian authorities not only to perfect the institutional framework for steering the national policy for promoting private investment, but also to have a structure capable of effectively ensuring the implementation of this government policy. In this logic, the Investment Promotion Agency (API) offers quality services in all stages of the investor support process. These services are summarized in the quadriptych of reception-assistance-orientation-support for investors, in order to contribute to the increase of a massive flow of investments in Cameroon and thus boost its economic growth.
Under the leadership of the API, in eight years, 279 agreements have been signed between the State of Cameroon and the private sector, creating 102,000 jobs. What is the key to this success?
The glowing assessment you are referring to is a positive consequence of the Cameroonian Government's efforts to improve the business climate in general, and the investment environment in particular. Indeed, with the creation of the API, the government's investment promotion policy is being effectively managed, notably through the quality services that the API offers investors, which allows them to benefit from special support throughout the process of setting up their projects in Cameroon. Also, I believe it is important to highlight the attractiveness of Law No. 2013/004 of April 18, 2013, establishing incentives for private investment in the Republic of Cameroon. This law, which has the merit of being non-discriminatory between national and foreign investors, offers a range of tax, customs, administrative, and financial incentives to investors. These incentives allow them to make significant tax savings that go beyond 25% of the charges that they would have had to pay under ordinary law.
What are Cameroon's main economic assets?
Cameroon, a true Africa in miniature that condenses an entire continent through its rich geographical and human diversity, has many assets to attract productive investments. Its first asset is its political stability, which gives it the reputation of being a true haven of peace in Africa, endowed with stable institutions allowing it to harmoniously regulate economic activity. Secondly, its unique geostrategic position within the Gulf of Guinea, which gives it access to a market of more than 300 million potential consumers in Central and West Africa, and even in Southern Africa (SADEC), constitutes a considerable economic asset. Also, as assets, it is necessary to mention its abundant natural resources, which are among the most important on the continent, its regulatory and institutional framework favorable to business development, its stable, diversified and resilient macroeconomic framework offering numerous business opportunities and making Cameroon an example in the sub-region. Also, its young population, of which more than 60% are under the age of 30, its school enrollment rate of more than 70% and among the highest in Africa, allows it to have an abundant and qualified workforce, the dynamism of its private sector, constitute significant economic assets. All these assets make Cameroon a preferred destination for investors in Africa. Without being exhaustive, these are all assets that make Cameroon a preferred destination for business.
What will the implementation of the AfCFTA bring in terms of investments?
The advent of the AfCFTA is the result of a vision of integrated and self-centered development of the African continent "by Africans and for Africans," through the promotion of local content. This means that, in essence, the AfCFTA aims to be a genuine instrument for the development of African economies by optimally utilizing their potential in terms of human capital and natural resources to achieve economic and social emergence. It is not just a trade agreement, but also and above all a new dynamic to activate the levers of development to lift Africa out of poverty. Among these levers of development is investment, among others. In 2021, foreign investment flows to Africa were estimated at US$83 billion, or 5.21 trillion of global FDI, while intra-African investment flows were estimated at only US$10 billion. In view of these figures, the observation is plausible: there is a very low capture of FDI towards our continent given its enormous potential and a low flow of intra-African investments. Thus, with the advent of the AfCFTA, new prospects are opening up for African economies to further realize their enormous growth potential, particularly through the development of intra-African investments.
Is there a strategy to promote productive investment from the diaspora?
The Cameroonian Government, concerned about its diaspora, has implemented a policy of promoting and involving the diaspora in the economic development process through its National Development Strategy (NDS30). In this strategy, the Government aims to create one or more investment funds to mobilize the diaspora's savings and to put in place legal provisions to encourage and secure diaspora investments. In the same vein, at the API level, special support is provided to the diaspora wishing to invest in the country. This support consists of informing, guiding, assisting and supporting investors from the diaspora in all stages of the process of setting up their investment projects in the country. The fruits of this support are already perceptible at the API with more than twenty projects led by the diaspora that have been approved under the incentive regime of the 2013 law, in different sectors of activity.