CEMAC Gets Business Climate Investment Observatory

By Godlove BAINKONG, Cameroon Tribune, 12-08-2013

Countries of the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC) are bracing up to put in place an investment observatory through which viable and updated data on the business climate in the sub-region could be accessed.

With the data and other workings of the observatory, conceivers say, countries could know where they are lagging behind and improve to attract sustainable investors, especially direct foreign investment, capable of enhancing their emergence drive.

A three-day international workshop to endorse a report on business climate in the sub-region, stakes and challenges in view of putting in place the investment observatory began in Yaounde yesterday August 12 under the auspices of the Minister of the Economy, Planning and Regional Development (MINEPAT), Emmanuel Nganou Djoumessi.

Opening the deliberations, the Minister said the micro-economic performance of the sub-region is not at optimum owing to the weak capacity of the private sector to generate sufficient jobs and wealth. “Analysts say the business climate in Sub-Saharan countries is more favourable than in the CEMAC countries. The 2012-2013 World Economic Forum as well as the 2013 Doing Business Report put CEMAC among the last 25 countries out of the 185 surveyed,” Mr Nganou Djoumessi regretted.

Like the Minister, the Commissioner in charge of Monetary and Financial Policies at the CEMAC Commission, Cameroon’s Paul Tasong, said the poor business environment in the sub-region is further exacerbated by the non-availability of a structure to produce and publish periodical data on the investment climate. Reason why the six CEMAC countries committed themselves during the March 2009 sub-regional concertation in Douala on the aftermath of the 2008 world economic meltdown to reinforce their regulatory tools and boost economic activities through an Investment Climate Observatory (OCI-CEMAC). “We have lots of indicators around the world today measuring the facilities of doing business and we thought that in order to enable the CEMAC sub-region to carry out the necessary steps in improving its business climate, we need this observatory which will help us to collect and analyse data and make it available to the various actors in terms of doing business,” Mr Tasong said. “We need to create our own indicators that will be friendly to our environment and closer to our reality,” he added. A view corroborated by Jean Christian Obame, Adviser of the Minister of the Economy, Employment and Sustainable Development of Gabon. “We need to reduce all the impediments on the production and export of our products from one country to another and a structure to coordinate business among small and medium-size enterprises in the sub-region.”