Interview: “Caribbean Market To Improve Trade, Investment”

What can Cameroon and Central Africa gain by cooperating with Caribbean countries?
There is export capacity. You would have seen the figures. In both regions, the continent as well as the Caribbean, the trade flows are very low. I expect that the Caribbean market will be presenting a country like Cameroon with a new market to explore and a new place to export to and to improve the trade and investment. It is about export diversification of the market that are available for the African continent. I think it is something that if we are talking about diversifying our export capacity, and export market away from just the European Union, we need to look for other regions of the world. From an export point of view, I will encourage not just Cameroon, but many other African countries to consider exporting to the Caribbean region and even importing from this region.

Cameroon was recently chosen as one of the seven countries that will implement intra-African trade. How did this choice come about and what is concretely expected from Cameroon?
The African Continental Free Trade Area is in full implementation mode now. What is expected is that each country that has ratified the agreement, should have in place customs systems to enable the trade to happen under AFCFTA rules. Cameroon, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda, Mauritius, are some of the countries that already have introduced the AFCFTA customs systems at national level. In order words, they are ready to trade under the AFCFTA rules. That is how we choose those countries. They would be export of ceramic tiles from Ghana to Cameroon. The certificate of origin is ready, as well as all of the trading documents. Cameroon is ready to receive those goods. The most important part is what the exercise will demonstrate is that AFCFTA does work. That is why we want to demonstrate on the 7 of October in Accra when we host that event. T...