The Automobile assembly plant announced for Bamenda has debunked all doubts as to whether or not Cameroonian businesses are capable of carrying out or piloting investment projects in their country like their foreign counterparts. Rhetorical questions of this nature seem to have been sparked by the inability of earlier industrial projects to takeoff after all assurances have been made. Cameroon would have been a veritable industrial hub if all that have been announced as industrial projects had gone operational.

This, however, is not to say that the Bamenda Car assembly plant would take the same direction. Far from that. Every indication at the moment, points to the success of the project. One, it is in the hands of renowned Chinese consortium. Two, the key partner of the consortium is one of the major banks in the country. The Chinese consortium, China General Technology Group Holding Company Ltd (GENENTECH) and China Machinery Company have a proven history of success in industrial activities. They excel in pharmaceutical products, infrastructural development, mining, cement and gas manufacturing.

The Bamenda plant, as explained by Awanga Zacharia, Chief Executive Officer of the National Financial Credit Bank, will be taking advantage of the Bamenda-Enugu road under construction to export assembled buses, tractors, and other agricultural equipment to neighbouring Nigeria and other countries of the West African sub region. The project will equally take advantage of the fact that it is one of the first industrial plants coming into a city hitherto known to have little or no facilities to enhance industrial growth. In fact, some people had already declared Bamenda in particular and the North West Region in general, as an industrial graveyard.

The point with the announcement of the automobile assembly factory is not why it is being taken to Bamenda, but how it all came about. In effect, two observations abound. The victory of going through the administrative hurdles to get the project files to fruition at a moment when fingers are pointing at the investment environment as not being sufficiently attractive. The second observation is the risk (though business is risk taking) a banking institution has taken to inject its capital into such a giant project, knowing that Cameroonian banks are known to be overflowing with cash but have been reticent to finance the economy.

The national Financial Credit Bank, which has come of age, has joined the band wagon of leading financial institutions that are ready to pump funds into development projects. The choice of Chinese companies as partner seems to have been well made. No Chinese company has so far failed Cameroon. The Bamenda assembly plant will not be an exception. It is a real icebreaker.