Cameroon Businesses now accepting electronic payments

Yaounde, Cameroon Africa(Cameroon News) – Cameroon is trying its level best to bring in investors from Switzerland for sectors like raw materials, agriculture and infrastructure.

Bilateral trade is still to take off in the country, but two Swiss companies have made their presence felt in the central African country after having the market potential in the region.

“Cameroon wants to become an emerging country. We might not be a big player but we aim to copy the model of Switzerland,” said Economics Minister Louis Paul Motaze during an event in Geneva.

“Cameroon is the engine and gateway into the central Africa market with its 150 million consumers,” he explained.

However, in spite of efforts that openly focused at luring Swiss investors nobody has expressed an interest to accept the offers so far.

“Trade between the two countries is rather weak, which is astonishing,” said Philippe Meyer of the Geneva chamber of commerce.

“Cameroon is one of the few African countries with a very investor-friendly conditions. There are opportunities in the petrol industry, agriculture and the energy sector as well as in environmental technologies and the exploitation of natural resources.”

Despite a certain hesitation, Rainbow Unlimited, the conveners of the event that took place in Geneva , states that there is visible increase in the interest among small and medium-sized Swiss businesses in investing in Cameroon.

“The football World Cup [held in South Africa last year] was a factor,” said Rainbow’s Thomas Seghezzi. The mega event was extremely helpful in changing the mindset that investors had about the continent in general and he stated that research has indicated that there is an increasing strata of middle class population who has sufficient purchasing power and disposable income , as research undertaken by organizations like McKinsey were able to find out.

Agricultural

Motaze says Cameroon is predominantly an agricultural economy with a growing scope –though it is typically centered traditional production methods.

“We produce only ten per cent of our rice ourselves and that’s not good,” he accepted.

“This is why Cameroon is looking for investors to increase output and process our products in the country.”

Marthe Angéline Mindja, director of the agency that is working to foster investments, points out the requirement to go through in detail the present cycle whereby agricultural products are first exported to foreign countries where they are processed to convert them into finished products. These products then come back to Cameroon in the packaged form and are sold here “at ten times the price” that it was exported from the same country. This has to be changed or at least reconsidered.

Cameroon should now focus on turning itself into a self-contained manufacturer of food, she said, and investment of any form should first be directed towards providing adequate food to satisfy the hunger of the local population which is prime. Export should be restricted to surplus production.

“We are a country with plenty of raw materials, including petrol, diamonds, nickel, cobalt and uranium,” Motaze said.

The second-most prime export product, other than fuel, is timber. But Cameroon is unwilling to send the processing part of the job in this sector to foreign countries because the government feels that it creates a lot of opportunities for employment and helps the economy to grow.

Motaze accepted that there are numerous issues for companies who aspire to start a business in Cameroon.

“We have to be honest. We do not yet have a good reputation. There is a lack of infrastructure and energy, even if we have the second-biggest potential for hydroelectricity.”

Brand New technologies

The Swiss food multinational Nestlé has been focusing on investing in Cameroon mostly to take the best advantage of the regional market. It was able to recruit an extremely talented and proficient workforce – a face of starting a business in Cameroon that most foreign investors readily acknowledge, says regional director for central Africa, Stéphane Nordé-Latour.

But on the other side of the balance are numerous disadvantages and challenges that reduce the glory of these advantages. “Africa jumped straight to the 21st century and skipped the evolutionary technologies. Mobile phones allow us to know any time what our employees are doing in the remotest village,” he said.

“Our employees want the latest technological gadgets. We can almost monitor in real time our 35,000 shops and selling points in all of Douala [Cameroon’s largest city]. I can tell you how many cups of coffee were served at the 61 petrol stations yesterday.”

Nordé-Latour added: “We apply the same quality standards, technology and labour conditions like elsewhere in the world.”

Mobile internet
The Swiss company 4Gafrica was a first timer in the latest technologies and was the pioneer to function in the 4G mobile internet system in sub-Saharan Africa.
“With his computer for $150 (SFr132) the small shopkeeper can now call Nestlé to order a few more kilograms of Maggi seasoning,” said CEO Dov Bar-Gera.
The company presently controls over 45 base stations marketing products that are priced at as low as SFr1.50 a month for availability of the internet. 4Gafrica recruits local manpower and has allocated the task of assembling the machinery to a local business.
“The quality of the work is often comparable with that in Europe. But it only costs about a third. What’s more, the opportunities for investment are unlimited. The country needs more technology, infrastructure and technical support,” Bar-Gera said.