The observation was made during a workshop to that effect organised by Single Window for Foreign Trade Operations, GUCE in Douala.

Foreign trade in Cameroon is said to be slow because much paperwork is carried out. It is the raison d’être why the government since last year decided to start-up an implementation procedure for paperless trade in the country. This means doing the hitherto paper-base documents the electronic way. The paperless trade will drastically reduce the number of days that businessmen used in exporting or importing goods.

Few years back, it took 40 days for imported goods to be received, but since the start of this procedure, it now takes 17 days. The objective of the implementation of paperless trade is to bring import from the hitherto 40 days to seven days and export to two days.

In a workshop organised by GUCE and presided at by its General Manager, Isidore Biyiha, national experts in foreign trade gave their contributions to the realisation of the project. According to GUCE’s Chief Information Officer, Abdoullahi Faouzi, 38 paperless procedures that need to be implemented to facilitate external trade were identified among which 20 have been finalised. To him the paperless trade will reduce the time for file treatment and corruption. The General Manager of GUCE, Isidore Biyiha, said since creation, the structure has been working hard to simplify and facilitate external trade in order to render the Cameroon economy more competitive and performing, which will go a long way to improve on Cameroon’s classification on 2015 “Doing Business” by the World Bank. “Since we have already finalised 20 of the 38 paperless procedures, there is no doubt that when we cover the 38 procedures. The Cameroonian economy will bridge enough gap thereby marching towards emergence,” he poised. World Bank Representative, Peter Taniform, saluted the collaboration between GUCE and them for the workshop organisation.