Minister Laurent Serge Etoundi Ngoa said the incubator will promote economic growth.
The Advanced School of Economic and Commercial Sciences, ESSEC, in the University of Douala, now has a nursery to train young entrepreneurs in fields like Audit and Management Control, Financial Management and Accounting, Human Resource Management, International Trade and Transport. During the inauguration ceremony by the Minister of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises, Social Economy and Handicrafts, Laurent Serge Etoundi Ngoa, the Institution’s Director, Emmanuel Kamdem, expressed satisfaction with the 15 high-speed desktop computers in the incubator, interconnected to required networks. The equipped centre will fascinate training, research and enhance, development, the Director added. The nursery and experts will accompany and follow-up young entrepreneurs especially project bearers in project creation, management and enterprise running. It was a rare moment for Director Kamdem to appreciate the Minister for handing a subvention of FCFA 150 million to ESSEC, destined for project development and finance.
In the presence of the Minister of Higher Education, Prof. Jacques Fame Ndongo and the Rector of the Douala University, Prof. Dieudonné Oyono, Minister Etoundi Ngoa said the nursery process will permit students to create and manage their own enterprises easily. Before now, the minister said, students graduated from such professional schools were given on-the-job training to gain experience and to be efficient. Upon graduation, he added, the young entrepreneurs will be up to the task to competently work in enterprises, or be their own masters.
One of the major challenges in most countries is the youthful population, and statistics shows that about 54 per cent of Cameroon’s population are youth. Thus the putting in place of a nursery in the Sahel Institute in Maroua later this year, and in Dschang in 2016 will help solve the unemployment problem. The setting of incubators in the country will not only create riches, but will generate employment and render the economy competitive and modern. Minister Etoundi Ngoa encouraged the students to work harder in order to become outstanding, dynamic and competent entrepreneurs, capable of contributing to the country’s emergence.
