Cmr commodities exchange is possible next year - CEO

Studies financed by the Government of Cameroon and the International Cocoa Organization was the product of an agreement signed last February between the Minister of Trade LUC Margloire Mbarga and the Executive Director Jean Marc Anga of the International cocoa organization, authorizing ELENI Firm to conduct the studies for the ultimate creation of the Cameroon Commodities and Exchange (CCX in French) next year, after the estimated completion of the studies this August.

Initial results of the study conducted in the south-west, north-west, centre and the west taking into consideration neighbouring markets in Nigeria, Chad, Gabon and others of the CEMAC zone on commodities like sorghum, rice, cocoa, coffee, beans, cassava, maize or corn, for seven weeks, showed that production capacities are low, but can be beefed up to increase the sales volume, in order to satisfy the expected increasing consumption levels, that vary from (coffee e cocoa) just over 80% and (beans, maize, sorghum to name a few) to below 40%.

These statistics were disclosed in their April meeting in Yaoundé this year with government.

The CEO of ELENI LCC Eleni Gabve M. and other experts contend that when the C.C.X finally gets operational; it is expected to become the epicentre of the commodities market in the CEMAC region.

They say it is going to create transparency in the pricing of commodities between producers and buyers, eliminate shylock middlemen and mutual distrust between buyers and vendors, improve price information flow in the distribution process, reward actors, the Cameroonian society and government accordingly.

However, these expectations of good tidings seem overshadowed by known constraints such as the lack of structural amenities in terms of transportation to and from production sites, energy, information technology systems for communication reasons, payment facilities, and increasing production of quality products, to name just these.

But according to our sources, the ELENI firm remains upbeat. Putting it anecdotally, the CEO indicated that the project is still feasible in Cameroon in one year after the feasibility studies are completed “With more constraints in Ethiopia than what we find in Cameroon, we took 18 months to launch a commodities exchange”, after which she remembered that” there are lenders who had a good laugh when they found out that Ethiopia is going to create an agricultural exchange, yet we realized it”.

She indicated that the Ethiopian Commodities Exchange now carries out daily transaction seven times higher than that of the Ghanaian Stock Market giving access to fifteen million coffee producers to the international market scene.

Madam Eleni has often reiterated that the Cameroon Commodities Exchange will improve incomes significantly and add to the modernization of the agricultural sector.

According to the Minister of trades during the signing ceremony, the project was to cost FCFA 50m in six months the first in, what he described as, a French-speaking Africa.