Accumulated delays at the port retards delivery period

Importing a container in Cameroon is three times more expensive than in Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand. This was information given by Dominique Njinkeu, Director of the Fund for the facilitation of trade at the World Bank, who called on the attention of the participants in the international workshop on the unique teller opened in Douala.

Because the search for competitiveness remains a constant quest for number of players in international trade, the theme of the workshop, scheduled from 8 to 11 September, married this concern: "Impact of the unique teller on the performance of the passage of goods in ports and on the facilitation of trade in general”.

It is theme for the participants from Asia, the Americas, Europe and Africa (the African Alliance for electronic commerce, which is organizing the workshop with the support of the World Bank, bringing together 15 countries on the continent), to assess "A peer review", as indicated by different stakeholders, and particularly the Director General of customs of Cameroon, Minette Libom li Likeng, who welcomed the judgment "without complacency.

This is to establish the strengths and weaknesses of the various institutions, to correct deficiencies in order to arrive at a standard model, for effective functioning. Different actors agreed on the urgency to streamline operations.

According to Dominique Njinkeu, with regard to the Douala-N'Djamena corridor, "more than half of the delivery period between the arrival of the goods at the port and their arrival at their final destination is due to accumulated delays in the port".

He added that these transition periods depend on three factors: operational transition periods, which depend on the realization of physical operations in the port; administrative transition times, dependent on the completion of customs clearance of goods by Customs and other services; time of passage due to voluntary storage of the goods in the Park container, for any other reason - lack of funds, unavailability or inefficiency of transport services.