Investment Strategy Committee at Work

Government, the private sector and civil society organisations have gone to work to draft a national strategy for the promotion of investments in the country. Members of the steering committee for drawing up the strategy document met in their first meeting at the Yaounde Hilton Hotel yesterday September 25 to examine the work plan prepared by the firm, Business Consulting Associates, as well as to adopt a way forward.

Speaking during the meeting, the General Manager of Cameroon Investment Promotion Agency (Cameroon -IPA), Marthe Angeline Minja, said the much-awaited national strategy for the promotion of investment is coming at a time when the world's economies are becoming increasingly competitive. Coming up with a strategy plan that stands the test of time, she noted, would be synonymous with attaining a double-digit growth rate by 2020 which is in line with the 2010-2020 Growth and Employment Strategy Paper and which also ties with the Head of State's Major Accomplishment programme of making the economy emergent by 2035.

The strategy, she observed, upon completion will be endorsed by government after which it would become a vision to give the country the needed investment, especially direct foreign investment. Marthe Angeline Minja noted that as at now, Cameroon like most African countries greatly lags behind in direct foreign investment with recent statistics showing barely 1.2 per cent. "Faced with this and given our country's already outlined growth vision, we cannot fold our arms and sit. We need to go to work and that is what we are doing," she said.

According to a working plan presented during yesterday's meeting, the document in gestation will serve as a coherent strategy to boost sustainable investment so that the dividends can be enjoyed by all citizens. Yesterday's meeting came after the official launching of the studies to draft the strategy plan on July 4, 2012.