This is one of the information that emerges from a workshop chaired by Hermann Fotie II, Permanent Secretary of the Competitiveness Committee of the Ministry of the Economy, Planning and Regional Development (Minepat).
Despite its rank as the5th largest cotton producer in Africa, Cameroon transforms just 2% of its cotton into textile products via the Cotonnière Industrielle du Cameroun (Cicam). This low rate is dependent on the"lack of competitiveness of Cameroon as a manufacturing site compared to other countries, a poor organization and structuring of the artisanal sector in the North and an unavailability of the financial resources required to make the necessary investments" we learn from Hermann Fotie II, Permanent Secretary of the Competitiveness Committee of the Ministry of the Economy, of Planning and Spatial Planning (Minepat).
To reverse this trend, the Minister of Mines, Industry and Technological Development (Minmidt) revealed the Government's plan for the sector, which aims to increase to 50% by 2030, the share of national production, which will be processed locally. A strategic option contained in the Master Plan for Industrialization (PDI), which places the textile and leather sectors among the pillars for the coming years. According to the IDP, to achieve this goal, the Cotton Development Company (Sodecoton) will have to double its current production (400,000 tons) in 2025; to meet the usual quotas that the company places on international markets and therefore redirect the surplus production to local processing.
Between 2014 and 2018, the cumulative value of imports of products from the textile and garment industries is around CFAF 584 billion. This represents a big shortfall for the local sector. According to the official financial statements, the Industrial Cotton Of Cameroon (Cicam) posted cumulative losses of 13.4 billion FCFA over the period 2018-2020, with a peak of 5.3 billion FCFA for the year 2018 alone. Its turnover fell from 13.2 billion CFA francs in 2018 to only 9.9 billion CFA francs in 2019, before falling to 7.3 billion CFA francs in 2020, a decrease of almost 50% compared to the 2018 financial year.
