Cameroon: more than 100 million USD from the United Arab Emirates to be captured by Cameroonian investors

This is one of the outcomes of the United Arab Emirates’ recent economic mission to Cameroon. Promotional activities in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have made Cameroon a preferred destination for Emirati investment. A call for expressions of interest to benefit from the “United Arab Emirates – Africa Gateway” pilot program has therefore just been launched by the UAE Ministry of Economy in partnership with UAE Trade Connect.

As one of the target countries, Cameroon is expected to receive significant investments from the Emirates, potentially in excess of 100 million USD. These investments will be directed towards more than 20 sectors including agriculture; agro-industry; energy; manufacturing; aviation; transport; logistics; education; training; water; sanitation and infrastructure. This promises substantial benefits for the country.

In order to capture these important investments in Cameroon, Cameroon’s Investment Promotion Agency (API) plans to organize a series of promotional webinars to ensure that project promoters in Cameroon take advantage of this pilot project.

To this end, API’s Acting General Manager invites promoters of bank investment projects wishing to benefit from these investment opportunities to contact API for further information on how to participate before 3pm on July 10th, 2024.

The UAE-Africa Gateway initiative aims to facilitate investment opportunities for UAE-based companies in 15 targeted sub-Saharan countries. The overall objective is to enable 100 UAE companies to invest in sub-Saharan Africa by the end of 2024.

As a reminder, a mission of investors from the United Arab Emirates visited Cameroon as part of the Cameroon-United Arab Emirates Investment Forum from August 1st to 5th, 2023. The aim of the delegation was to seize the investment opportunities presented to them by the API. Indeed as part of its participation in the 2022 Football World Cup, API had been in Qatar on a campaign to attract investors resulting in the signing of eight memorandums of understanding. Although direct Emirat investment is not yet visible in Cameroon, the city of Dubai a major commercial crossroads between the United Arab Emirates and Africa, has for years been a major destination for Cameroonian importers.