Â
On March 30, 2023, the platform took part in the restricted consultation held in Douala between MINEPAT and private sector players.
The Ministry of the Economy, Planning and Regional Development (MINEPAT) had initiated a consultation with certain major players in the national economy. These were mainly business leaders from the local flour, timber, milk, palm oil and steel sectors. The meeting took place on March 30, 2023, at Krystal Palace Hotel in Douala.
PROFALCAM, as the platform of Cameroon’s local flour promoters, took part in the meeting. During a presentation by its President, Njile George Mbanda, the group took stock of the current state of local flours. This provided an opportunity to highlight the various actions undertaken to date in this sector by both the government and PROFALCAM. The presentation was also an opportunity to outline the various constraints facing the platform, and to identify the levers to be used to boost production in this sector.
This presentation did not fall on deaf ears. Indeed, the meeting produced a draft matrix of priority measures to be implemented for the development of local flours. This document identifies the problems to be resolved, the priority measures to be taken, and the public and private bodies involved.
As far as local flour is concerned, the government undertook, among other things, to “support PROFALCAM in order to make the development of this value chain of public utility”. To work towards the development of “standards for local bread-making flours and make them compulsory”. The State also wants to “speed up the revision of the bread standard to define the proportions of wheat/local flours to be incorporated into bread, as well as other bakery, pastry and cookie products, and make it compulsory”.
Another priority measure for MINEPAT is the adoption of a law on the incorporation of local flours in all bakery, pastry and cookie products produced by structures established on national territory, while ensuring their systematization in public procurement. But also “to explore ways and means of progressively reducing, with a view to their elimination, the fiscal and customs advantages granted to importers of durum wheat and/or wheat flour”.
The consultation, held at Krystal Palace Hotel in Douala was chaired by Paul Tasong, Minister Delegate to MINEPAT. Its aim was to identify the levers to be activated in the various sectors of the economy mentioned above, to enable the private sector to make an optimum contribution to achieving the objectives of transforming the national economy. This applies in particular to the import-substitution policy initiated in 2010.