Import – Export activities slowing down at the Douala port

An emergency meeting has been held between consultation platform actors of the port of Douala to discuss the nine month long import and export crisis.

A statement was released by the President of the National Committee for Facilitation of International Maritime Traffic (FAL), André Fotso, also president of interpatronal Group of Cameroon (GICAM).

It said: “This worrying situation in the port of Douala is down to congestion areas and other circumstantial factors that results in a slower handling pace and lengthy waiting times for ships. It follows an exponential increase in crossing times and the costs to import as well as export has negative repercussions on the economy and the image of Cameroon at a time when governments and all other actors are engaged in a general mobilization to accelerate growth.”

The diagnostic committee said the root of this problem stemmed from: "Exceeding structural capacity of the port; exceeding the operational capacities of the different dealers; the sudden influx of products to be processed, including wood, following the reopening of the Central African border; low ownership of certain procedures and the inadequacy of some others in a situation of congestion.

“The occupation of spaces with damaged goods, for example, imported cement since 2010, recurrent failures from the scanner while it is a facilitation tool and prolonged and disproportionate medians by trucks sometimes waiting for the installation of GPS equipment, helps stifle the cash clearing agents and delays the output of goods."

Faced with this litany of problems, participants in the consultation crisis on July 1 identified exceptional measures, 14 in total, to engage in the next few days to reverse the current situation.

These include; the provisional suspension of access to wood in the exhibition center, the easing of procedures for the issuance of warrants to embark on the wood, planning new spaces for storage of goods, the reactivation of the timber yard of Kribi, removal of cement stored since 2010 and the redevelopment of working hours on the port.