New Business Cartel Launched

The grouping of enterprises into business associations is gaining grounds in the economic capital following the nation's walk toward an emergent economy, the establishment of an Agricultural Bank and a Bank for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs).

The new grouping, La Camerounaise des PME (C-PME), launched on Wednesday in Bessengue in the port city of Douala, brings the number of business cartels in the country to four. Going by Anselme Kemva, Executive President of the new guild, 104,000 SMEs exist in the country, less than 1,000 of them are affiliates of the cartels.

While addressing a news conference during which C-PME was presented and launched, he expressed the reason that the structure will not just listen to and cater for enterprises but also help enhance their performance through expertise training and advice. Innovative values include seeking to encourage government to look into the tax system on SMEs, tackle managerial lapses like accounting, business laws, tax implication as well as help evaluate a new information system for the sector. Rather than concentrate on managerial issues, C-PME thinks that any well-shaped management plan without adequate planning and organisation from the onset can be destructive to the enterprise.

It is within these concerns that the new cartel will define and disseminate the opinions of SME promoters to enterprises, in order to secure a favouable regulatory environment as well as constructively contribute to social dialogue in enterprises and their professional organisations. In every good sense of it, the country should be expecting to gain support and expertise of the private sector which now has many cartels each coming up with important ideas and expertise that will promote the economy.