EU-ACP – Yaounde Regional Office of CDE Goes Operational

Godlove Bainkong

28 June 2011

The Regional Office of the Centre for the Development of Enterprise in Central Africa will officially open its doors in Yaounde on wednesday June 29.

This will be during an official ceremony at the Yaounde Hilton Hotel to bring together both officials of the private sector, notably those in the small and medium-sized enterprises, and government officials directly involved in the sector.

In prelude to today’s ceremony, the Director of the Centre for the Development of Enterprise (CDE), Jean-Erick Romagne and some senior officials of the centre yesterday held talks, in separate audiences, with the Minister of the Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, Social Economy and Handicraft (MINPMESSA), Laurent Serge Etoundi Ngoa, and the Minister Delegate in the Ministry of the Economy, Planning and Regional Development (MINEPAT), Yaouba Abdoulaye. In a press declaration after the audiences, Mr Jean-Erick Romagne said his meeting with the government officials was to have a consensus on how to work to ensure that the regional office lives up to expectations.

According to the programme of today’s ceremony features among others two workshops to validate reports of studies carried out in view of rendering the regional office efficient.

CDE is an ACP (African, Caribbean and Pacific)/EU joint institution created within the framework of the Cotonou Agreement with funding mainly from the European Development Fund (EDF).

Its objective is to ensure the development of professional ACP enterprises operating in the private sector. It operates in complementarity with the European Commission, the Secretariat of the ACP Group of States and the European Investment Bank in the framework of support to the private sector.

The centre provides non-financial services to ACP companies and to joint initiatives of ACP and EU economic operators in various economic sectors, with the main aim to increasing competitiveness of ACP enterprises.

According to the CDE Director, Cameroon was chosen after long discussion and “you know it is a leading country in the Central African Sub-region”, he said.

AllAfrica – All the Time