The need for the development, regularisation and preservation of frontier exchanges between countries constitutes one of Cameroon government’s concerns. Meeting in Buea on Monday January 10 for a workshop on the development of trade in agro-sylvo-pastoral products within CEMAC zone and Nigeria, participants brainstormed on creating a platform to serve for the betterment of exchange between CEMAC countries and Nigeria. The two-day workshop themed “consolidating sub-regional integration through markets,” brought together representatives from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MINADER), and sister ministries, and private operators in the various different agricultural sectors, through out the national territory.

In a welcome note, the Mayor of Buea, Mbella Moki Charles qualified the choice of Buea municipality as “eloquent proof of the strategic place Buea and the South West Region as a whole occupies in the agricultural sector f Cameroon”. He stressed on the role of the two locally based agro-industrial companies- the Cameroon tea estate and the Cameroon development corporation- best in tea, banana, palm, rubber and other export products. Adding that government’s resolve to ensure a comprehensive framework for the agricultural sector is in response to UN Millennium Development Goals No. 1.

Presiding at the opening ceremony, the Inspector General at MINADER in charge of Agricultural Development, Dikongue Matam, explained the major place growth and employment hold in the Head of State’s greater achievements plan, while stressing that one of the schemes for realisation is through sub-regional integration. He added that the development of exchange products between countries has always been the core of the economic development of the countries, regions, and sub-regions concerned, as is the case with CEMAC countries, that are determined to converge in the same direction. He revealed that Cameroon alone holds about 65% in the exchange rate between CEMAC countries; the main products being agriculture, livestock and forestry. As for CEMAC non-member states that equally play a non-negligible role, Cameroon and Nigeria, he said, share about 1500km frontier line. This, Dikongue Matam stressed, constitutes a potential market with more than 150 millions consumers. He added that the putting in place of a standard system that checks the influx of agro-sylvo-pastoral products as well as their prices will lead to a better knowledge of regional demand and supply, assure transparency in the markets for both private and public actors, permit a just redistribution of revenues within the different sectors, and most importantly, result to an increase in producers’ revenue, with a consequent amelioration of livelihood. The main focus of the workshop therefore, he emphasised, was to identify the demand of products, their quantity and quality, so as to better orientate programmes and projects for the development of agro-pastoral products. The Buea workshop was a follow up of a previous one held in Ambam, in January 2009.