'Discussions Continue on Improving Business Climate'

Dieudonné Bondoma Yokono, Director General of the Economy, MINEPAT speaks on efforts to improve the business environment in Cameroon.

What can we make of the Business Climate Survey whose results are being presented in all the regions across the country?

The Minister of the Economy, Planning and Regional Development (MINEPAT) has decided to send teams to the field to explain the results of the Business Climate Survey which is an operation that was conducted last year and presented at the central level. Now, it was necessary to go to the different regions in order to explain it there. We realised that many people in the private sector still say that the business climate is risky and we also discovered that most of them are not informed of the different reforms that the government has put in place to improve the business climate in our country.

The main areas concerned here are basically infrastructure because many people have been complaining. In this area, much has been done since 2000. There are many projects to improve the supply of energy notably with the launching of giant energy projects like Memve'ele and Lom-Pangar Hydroelectricity Dams. The Prime Minister also inaugurated the bridge on the Sanaga River (Pont de l'Enfance) as well as the Ayos-Bonis road. There is also the launching of construction work on the Kribi Deep Seaport project, the modernisation of telecommunications infrastructure, etc. These are some of the areas about which the private sector is complaining but as you can see, we have put in a lot of effort to improve the conditions under which the private sector operates.

You talked about reforms, which are they?

In the domain of business creation, you can see near the National Radio Station of CRTV at Nlongkak in Yaounde that we are building the One-Stop-Shop where anyone wishing to set up a business can do it in less than three days. People who created businesses before did so in about a month and today, it is three days. You only go to one point and accomplish the different formalities. We also have reforms in the reduction of taxes that the private sector pays.

What next after the presentation of the Business Climate Survey?

We will continue talks with our partners of the private sector in order to go further because it is a process. We cannot in anyway consider the survey as the end of the process because we are in an evolving world and we must evolve with it. So, discussions will go on in order to implement more reforms in their favour.