EPA committee meeting to be held in May

Members of the Steering Committee in charge of the Follow-up and Implementation of the Bilateral Agreement between Cameroon and the European Union, sealed by the Economic Partnership Agreement, EPA, met in Yaounde on April 15, 2015, to finalise preparations for their forthcoming meeting. The meeting is to be held with their European Union counterparts.

The Secretary General in the Economy and Planning Ministry, chair of the Steering Committee, Gilbert Didier Edoa, revealed that Yaounde or Brussels may host the May, 2015 meeting.

The upcoming get-together is expected to lay emphasis on the strict respect and implementation of EPA. Although the contract is already in force with Cameroonian products exempted from taxes, Gilbert Didier Edoa underscored that “products from the EU will only be free from taxes as from August 2016 as stipulated by the pact.”

The technical team has resolved the worry surrounding the origin of products and says its report will be tabled for approval by allies soon. Gilbert Didier Edoa affirmed that the implementation of EPA might for sure impact the country’s economy negatively or positively.

That notwithstanding, government has taken measures to face challenges. “We have developed a programme to modernise our economy and it is being implemented.

We are working with companies to update their level of competitiveness to face the consequences of the EPA,” he noted.

The President of the Technical Secretariat, Jean-Jacques Ngouang, briefed participants on reports from satellite projects that fall within the Cameroon EPA-European Union venture, with revelations on difficulties.

Committee members also fine-tuned preparations for the 34th session of the Regional Coordination Committee for EPA negotiations in the Central Africa Sub-region to hold anytime from now. The committee has adopted the work plan for this year.