While opening deliberations, the Director General of the Economy and Investment Programming in the Ministry of Economy, Planning and Regional Development, Dieudonné Bondoma Yokono, where the project is lodged, said sustainable banana production could have far-reaching effects on the country’s economy and by extension socio-economic development. Cameroon, reports say, currently produces about 1.2 million tonnes of plantains yearly and imports 400,000 tonnes of flour annually at a cost of nearly FCFA 60 billion.
The restructuring plan envisages an annual production of 3,2 million tonnes and the strategy is to involve small and medium-sized enterprises and other major producers from production, processing to marketing the produce. It also seeks to step up the processing of plantains into flour and chips. Government, the plan holds, needs to offer subventions to producers in terms of facilitating access to loans, subsidies in form of inputs and the provision of cultivable land to small and medium-sized enterprises interested in the banana/plantain sector.
Experts agreed during the Wednesday’s meeting that such a strategy, if fully implemented, could help the country to conquer the sub-regional markets, minimise the total dependence on imported wheat flour that is costing the State huge sums of money that would have otherwise been directed to accelerate development in other sectors and in so doing improving its trade balance which has persistently remained below average. The programme’s file shows that the economic restructuring strategies could cost FCFA 216 billion with FCFA 60 billion coming from the State and the private partners to generate the remaining FCFA 156 billion.
The document, experts said, is fruit of 15 months of brainstorming and the recommendations made during Wednesday’s validation workshop will be integrated into the document before handing it over to the Minister of the Economy, Planning and Regional Development for action.
