The subject was under scanner during a seminar of exporters of the cash crops in Douala April 17 and 18.

Though Law n°95/11 of July 27, 1995 relating to the commercialization of cocoa and coffee recognizes the specificities of the cocoa and coffee sector, the sector has continued to exist as one without a particularity. That no specific, well-defined law tailored to the particularities of the sector exists since 1995 it has affected the competition of Cameroon cocoa and coffee on the international market.

For two days stakeholders in the commercialization and transformation of the cash crops from the cocoa and coffee main groupings, the Cocoa and Coffee Interprofessional Board (CICC) and the Cameroon Group of Exporters of Cocoa and Coffee (GEX), reflected on how best to make the crops more competitive.

The seminar, whose main objective was to seek ways to improve on the competitiveness of cocoa and coffee, held under the theme “Fiscal obligations of cocoa and coffee”, is expected to pave the avenue for the reinforcement of the capacity of members investing in the sector, ameliorate the tax system regulating the cocoa and coffee sector, as well as the encouraging the professionalization of members of the two groupings.

Laws regulating the industrial and other agricultural sectors were said to have simply been used and applied in the cocoa and coffee sectors. This caused legal and socio-economic constrains which decreased the competitiveness of the crops on the international market, according to Ngwe Appolinaire, President of CICC. A lack of coherence between activities of exporters, with unclear fiscal and financial obligations resisted sustained efforts to give the Cameroon cocoa and coffee a positively recognizable image on the global market. This view was corroborated by the Permanent Secretary of GEX, Jean Dikoume, who said, in the absence of a clear and accessible fiscal system, specific to the cocoa and coffee sector and adapted to its environment, professionals or taxpayers in the sector are often compelled to take shortcuts such as simply turning to the administration for help in order to be able to carry out their transactions.

It is in the light of these problems that the professionals came up with recommendations adapted to their operations. The recommendations seek to encourage specific laws for the cocoa and coffee sector, like it is in the case of wood and petroleum sectors. They also called for the re-organization of the sector, which until now remains informal.