Foreign multinationals to control goods at Douala port

Compliance control operations carried out before the shipment of goods imported in Cameroon have been entrusted to the Swiss companies SGS and Intertek International UK, specializing in control, audit, analysis and certification of products, official sources said on Monday.

According to the Ministry of Industry, Mines and Technological Development, the signing of this contract will boost the implementation of the Conformity Assessment Program before the shipment of goods imported in the Republic of Cameroon (PECAE), which was launched last year.

This mechanism, the authorities said, will reduce the arrival in Cameroon of imported products which do not meet the standards in force.

The program provides, among others, the issuing of licenses to specializing structures established in exporting countries.

Under the terms of the agreement, it will be up to SGS– which has already been working at the port of Douala for twenty years– and to the British company Intertek International, to conduct, at the exporters’ costs, beforehand compliance controls before the shipment of goods to Cameroon, a country that has no modern laboratories to monitor compliance of goods.