The year 2011 started with positive signs for the Kribi Deep Seaport project with the organisation of the first round table conference of investors on the construction of the port in what observers described as a giant move towards financing the project.

The conference had three main objectives, first, to let people know what the project is all about; second, to make people react and third, to find out those who are interested in the project as far as financing is concerned. And so, investors came from China, Canada and Europe with almost all of them expressing their willingness to finance its construction.

It was indeed an important trigger that ended up fast-tracking the process. Chinese companies especially, empirically expressed their interest in the project. Two of the companies that were present at the Yaounde confab, the China National Electric Equipment Corporation and the China Harbour Engineering Company Limited said they will be participating in building the port construction.

The rapidity with which the process evolved proved the determination of the government to make it a reality. The emission of the first-ever auction of Treasury bills to help finance major projects in the country including the Kribi Deep Seaport further raised hopes. Of the FCFA 200 billion raised, FCF 21 billion were allocated to the project. The presentation of the project during the laying of the foundation stone made it clear that China had accepted to disburse a loan of FCFA 207.7 billion through the Eximbank of China and had already mobilised its counterpart funding to the tune of FCFA 36 billion to meet the entire budget of the first phase evaluated at over FCFA 240 billion.

The clearing of the thick forest in one of the sites in Mboro that will host the general ports, excavation of the top soil and backfilling of the area were visible signs the project would at last become a reality. The Kribi Deep Seaport is an important project that will not only serve Cameroon but the whole of the Central African sub region. In effect, it has as motivation to develop the country towards the production of ore resources, notably bauxite, Iron, Cobalt and Nickel; satisfy the constant need of Cameroon to have a Deep Sea Port, the necessity for the sub-region to have a container off-shore terminal and a transhipment as well as goods distribution platform from Senegal to Namibia. The project equally sets out to realise a development corridor for Kribi (Cameroon), Bangui (Central African Republic), Kisangani (DR Congo), and the Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Congo stretches.

Upon completion, the main port with five to 16 metres draught will receive big vessels with a capacity close to 100,000 tonnes. This will fill the gaps of the Douala Seaport whose draught is only six to seven metres and can at best receive vessels with a capacity of 15,000 tonnes. The second and third phases of the project are expected to be financed by private companies on the "Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT)" system.

02 Janvier 2012 National - Retro 2011 (Cameroon Tribune)