CEMAC Gets Centre For Enterprise Development

Godlove Bainkong

29 June 2011

Countries of the Economic and Monetary Union of the Central African States (CEMAC) now have a centre to develop their entrepreneurial skills and boost the activities of existing enterprises such that most, if not all, of the economies, could grow towards emergence and bail the sub-region out of underdevelopment.

The sub-regional office of the Centre for the Development of Enterprise, (CDE) with headquarters in Yaounde, was officially rendered operational yesterday June 29 following a colourful inaugural ceremony at the Yaounde Hilton Hotel.

Speaker after speaker at the inaugural ceremony qualified the centre as a new dawn not only for economic activities in the sub-region, but for sound sub-regional integration as well.

According to Cameroon’s Minister of the Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, Social Economy and Handicraft, Laurent Serge Etoundi Ngoa, the last survey carried out by the Ministry of the Economy, Planning and Regional Development, MINEPAT, shows that small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) occupy about 94 per cent of enterprise development in the country.

“As such, when we want to reinforce our economy, we have to strengthen the SMEs system. Reason why the centre is very important for the SMEs to carry out reforms which will enable us to grow to become big enterprises in the future”, he said. A view which the Assistant Secretary General of ACP Group, Achille Bassilekin III corroborated.

Describing the private sector as an engine of growth, he said the challenge remains to help the region become competitive and sell products in conformity with the market rules. “Central Africa as a matter of fact, has been lagging behind in doing Business Reports year after year.

I think it can benefit not only from the tools that were developed over years by the CDE but also, CDE has been one of the most important institutions in promoting private sector activities both in organising the business environment as well as in providing assistance to enterprise. But for this, he said, countries must first comply with existing standards.

“There are so many of the standards that have been developed by the CDE and I am sure that just for the countries working in synergy with CDE, it will be possible to live up to expectation with the new standards in terms of private sector development,”Mr Bassilekin III said

Like the Minister Delegate in the Ministry of the Economy, Planning and Regional Development, Yaouba Abdoulaye, who chaired the ceremony in the presence of scores of Cabinet Ministers, the Director of CDE, Jean-Erick Romagne said ongoing government development policies coupled with the centre can meet the sub-region’s dream of catapulting their economies to emergent ones by 2035. The pioneer Director of the Regional Office is Cameroon’s Aliou Abdoullahi.

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