ECONOMIC PROJECTS
Cargill exits the sugar trade
The world sugar market is no longer successful. Between overabundance of supply and stagnation of prices at low levels, the sector has experienced a wave of withdrawal of traders in recent years and this movement continues to increase. The American trading giant Cargill announced on March 30 the sale of its entire stake (50%) in Alvean, the world's largest sugar trader resulting from its merger in 2014 with Copersucar, Brazil's leading sugar producer and of ethanol. Thanks to this operation, the Brazilian company becomes the sole owner of Alvean, which trades 12 million tonnes of sugar each year, or 20% of world trade. The maneuver represents an opportunity for Copersucar, which now has a free hand to consolidate its international and local sugar activities in order to gain prominence in the global market. Copersucar is already the world's number one ethanol trader thanks to its 2012 merger with Eco-Energy, an American biofuel trader. For its part, Cargill explains that this withdrawal is part of a strategy to refocus on its activities in food processing and animal proteins and adds that it will continue to supply sugar derivatives to its customers in Brazil. , Mexico and the USA. More generally, this approach by the American company should be seen in a general context marked by a disinvestment by world trading players in a sugar market whose commercial attractiveness has diminished with the fall in world prices linked to the glut of the offer. The company is following in the footsteps of Archer Daniels Midlands (ADM) and Bunge, which left the sector in 2016 and 2018 respectively, as well as Louis Dreyfus, who sold BioSev SA, its Brazilian sugar and ethanol subsidiary, to the company last February. Raizen. With the departure of Cargill, the ABCD square of grain and oilseed traders and producers is therefore disappearing from the sugar trade, which leaves room for maneuver for players based mainly in Latin America. In 2020, Cargill had sales of $114.6 billion. This confirms its status as the world's leading agricultural trader.
Cocoa: the American Cargill, with 49% of purchases, is Cameroon's leading international customer for the 2020-2021 season
During the 2020-2021 cocoa campaign, which theoretically ended on July 15, 2021, the brick red bean from Cameroon was purchased by 33 traders and processors on the international market. But, despite this diversity of buyers, the American firm Cargill alone won 49% of the beans from Cameroon, according to the National Office of Cocoa and Coffee (ONCC). This buyer thus totals nearly half of the volumes acquired by the Singaporean Olam (26.29% of purchases). The top three of the main buyers of the Cameroonian bean is completed by the Dutchman Theobroma, whose purchases represented only 6.75% of the volumes shipped to the international market during the 2020-2021 cocoa campaign. The control exercised by Cargill over Cameroonian cocoa is explained by the presence on the national territory of the company Telcar Cocoa, its local trader. During the campaign under review, this company controlled by Cameroonian Kate Fotso, presented by Forbes magazine as the richest woman in French-speaking sub-Saharan Africa, made purchases of 67,835 tons, or 22.1% of volumes. global. However, these purchases are down 2.5%, compared to the 69,253 tonnes (24.6% of market share) of beans purchased during the 2019-2020 cocoa campaign. Despite the decline in its activities in its preferred basin of the South-West, due to the crisis facing the two English-speaking regions of Cameroon since the end of 2016, Telcar Cocoa thus remains at the forefront of local buyers (in 2018 -2019, Sic Cacaos had beaten him to the pawn, Ed). Far ahead of Olam (19.4% of local purchases); processor Sic Cacaos (17.4%), a subsidiary of Switzerland's Barry Callebault; or even AMS (5.75%). In order to capture the local bean, on behalf of its American partner, Telcar Cocoa has developed a real partnership with Cameroonian producers. This includes the creation of farmers' schools in the country's basins, with a view to training producers in good farming practices; the distribution of premiums for the production of certified cocoa, through its “Cargill Cocoa Promise” initiative; or even the implementation, from the current year 2021, of a complete traceability system for its direct cocoa supply chain, from the plantation to the factory.
On the sidelines of the world, Cameroon announces a business forum in Dubai to attract investors from the Middle East
As part of Cameroon's participation in the 22nd edition of the Qatar 22 World Cup, the Investment Promotion Agency (API) announces that it is organizing from December 5 to 9 in Dubai, a business forum called "Cameroon Investment Week". The event, we learn, has the theme "Investing in Cameroon, land of opportunities". It will be coupled with a series of promotional activities for the Cameroon destination in Doha from November 23 to December 3, 2022. "It's about presenting the investment opportunities that Cameroon abounds to investors and strengthening economic ties with the Middle East," explains API's Managing Director, Marthe-Angeline Minja (photo). Taking part in these forums are "high" government dignitaries, leaders of private companies and "icons" of civil society from Cameroon and the United Arab Emirates. Since 2010, the year in which API activities were launched, 171 agreements have been signed for investment promises of more than 1,000 billion FCFA in Cameroon and the creation of nearly 61,000 jobs, according to a count from this institution. . According to Ms. Minja, despite the problems of insecurity in certain regions (North-West, South-West and Far-North) of Cameroon, the country remains a fairly popular destination. And this thanks, among other things, to the natural wealth of the country, to the bilingualism (English and French) that is practiced. There are openings to the sea, deep water ports exist. Moreover, the country is working on its energy self-sufficiency. So many arguments that lead the API DG to say that "Cameroon is a big market".
The international placement agency RCI opens a branch in Cameroon
The placement agency called Recrutement-conseil international (RCI) has taken the necessary steps to open a branch in Cameroon. Thus, we learn from a legal announcement, RCI with a capital of €18,730 (12.38 million FCFA) based in France, filed, for authentication, a report in August 2022 to open a subsidiary in Cameroon. This company will operate as a consultant in terms of human resources management, training for professionals and individuals, the establishment and development of skills assessments. And on an ancillary basis, we learn, this subsidiary will operate in the trading, import and export of manufactured products. A representative was appointed in the person of Eugène Mbouwe Yossa. " The opening of this new office is an important step in achieving our goal of covering French-speaking countries ", indicates RCI. On observation, the particularity of the subsidiary in Cameroon is that it should invest in a field that is not its core business: the import and export of manufactured products such as beverages, tobacco ; textile industry products, clothing items, etc. According to the RCI information sheet, this company has been operating for more than twenty years in Canada and France. It offers companies training and consulting services in the field of lifting and handling equipment, as well as health and safety advice. It is also present in Belgium and Switzerland.
Palm oil: the Agronomic Research Center of Côte d'Ivoire requested for a project in Eastern Cameroon
The National Center for Agronomic Research of Côte d'Ivoire (CNRA) is asked to provide its expertise in the context of an oil palm project in Eastern Cameroon, according to an announcement by the Cooperative company of agro-pastoral varieties of Abong-Mbang (Covagro), with a capital of 80.3 million FCFA. The company indicates that it is a question of laying the beginnings of a collaboration agreement with the CNRA in the field of research and development of the cultivation of oil palm. " This collaboration constitutes a real opportunity in the search for palliative solutions to the difficulties that Cavagro encounters in its action ", she adds. For example, the CNRA should produce germinated palm seeds tolerant to Fusarium wilt for the Cameroonian company. It is a plant disease caused by various fungi that affect many plants, both in the garden and in the vegetable patch. These sprouted seeds are disease resistant and have a density of 200 plants per hectare. They go into production after three years. If the partnership is sealed with the Ivorian Center, the Cameroonian company hopes to materialize all of its project to plant 180 ha of oil palm in the East, of which 100 ha are in the production phase. Cavagro indicates that this is not her first experience of working with institutions of such stature. The company has already entered into a similar partnership which recently resulted in the harmonious implementation of an agreement with the Livestock Development Project (Prodel), financed by the World Bank, aimed at improving the production of farms by continuously rearing 8,400 laying hens.
Cameroon pushed towards the operationalization of the Caisse de dépôt et de consignation, created 14 years ago
A delegation from the Forum des Caisses de dépôt has been staying in Cameroon since November 14, 2022. The objective of this visit, which ends on the 18th of the same month, is to convince Cameroon of the merits of operationalizing its Caisse de dépôts. and consignment (CDEC), created by the law of April 14, 2008 governing deposits and consignments. This text was supplemented by the decree of April 15, 2011 on the organization and operation of the CDEC. "The presence of the Forum des Caisses de dépôt here follows the 6th international conference of the Forum des Caisses de dépôt which was held in Libreville, at the end of which it was strongly encouraged, like the area Uemoa, the creation of Caisses de dépôt in the Cemac Zone", indicated Lassina Fofana, the general manager of the Caisse des dépôts et consignations de Côte d'Ivoire (CDC-CI), who currently chairs this group of Caisses de dépôt. In CEMAC (Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and Chad), only Gabon has such a structure. To do this, the Forum des Caisses de dépôt organized, on November 16, a seminar on " the economic model of the Caisses de dépôt, their place in the institutional system and in the financial ecosystem ". On the occasion, the Cameroonian Minister of Finance (Minfi), Louis Paul Motaze, said he hoped that " the Forum's working visit to our country will undoubtedly improve the perception of the authorities and the public on the issues and the challenges of setting up a Caisse des dépôts, but also to appease the reluctance of some of our partners as to the complementarity of this instrument at the service of the development of countries ". And to add: " The program of your work will give participants the opportunity to discuss and project themselves with the aim of laying the groundwork for a successful and controlled operationalization of our Caisse, based on the experience of other countries. and taking into account our specificities". In an interview granted to Investir au Cameroun, on the occasion of the 6th edition of the international conference of the Caisses de dépôt forum, the managing director of the Autonomous Sinking Fund (CAA), Richard Evina Obam, estimated that the CDEC is not a panacea. " The missions that the Caisse de depot et consignations will carry out are today fulfilled with more or less success by structures that work very well ", he added. The main mission of a Caisse de dépôt, explains the Cameroonian Ministry of Finance, is to collect, secure and make profitable over the long term generally "idle" resources, to direct them towards supporting public policies. These resources come from regulated savings, deposits from notaries or legal professionals, administrative consignments and sureties, funds from national savings banks or social security funds, pension funds and pension schemes for insurance and guarantee funds. This through various distributor and collector networks such as the post office, affiliated banks, savings banks, dedicated counters or dedicated platforms.
The Russians land in Cameroon
The signing of defense agreements between Cameroon and Russia marks the concretization of a new partnership. In recent years, Russian private investors have been interested in Cameroon. In 2014, when cooperation between Russia and Cameroon was only visible in terms of armaments, the two countries decided to create a Russian business center in Cameroon to boost trade. It was the second contract signed after the one between Rosoboronexport, a Russian military equipment manufacturer, and the Cameroonian Ministry of Defense. In recent years, Russia has been trying to gain ground in Cameroon in the field of investment and business. Energy, Transport, Entertainment, Public Works, the Russian presence is increasingly felt.
In Cameroon, an oil and gas project involving the Russian Lukoil delayed by the war in Ukraine
In a study published on March 30, 2022, the American rating agency Standard & Poor's (S&P) reveals that following the sanctions imposed on Russia in the context of the conflict between it and Ukraine, many oil and gas projects will be affected on the African continent, where Russian companies are active in the sector. In Cameroon, this S&P forecast has already come true. Indeed, in an official press release published this same March 30, 2022, the British oil and gas operator Bowleven, which, with its partners New Age and the Russian Lukoil, obtained Cameroon's approval to introduce a new operating license on the Etindé block in January 2021, details the impact of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict on this project. “The Joint Venture (JV) partners concluded in December 2021 that the development option of exporting gas to Equatorial Guinea was the preferred choice in terms of value, risks and benefits for Cameroon and each member of the joint venture. SNH (Société Nationale des Hydrocarbures, NDLR) agreed to study the recommendation of the JV partners and report as soon as possible on their own examination of the option, alongside their proposal for the next steps. The recent Ukrainian crisis has impacted the ability to coordinate efforts among all members of the joint venture, and we envision a period of normalization resuming in due course to facilitate this effort,” explains Bowleven. Sanctions against Russia But, beyond the difficulties related to the coordination of actions between the partners of the project in which SNH defends the interests of Cameroon, the presence in the consortium of the Russian company Lukoil, which is " impacted by the sanctions against Russia " , delays the final investment decision (FID). "At this stage, we remain confident that the JV partners may be able to make a final investment decision in 2022. But, we also recognize that the outstanding commercial and political issues are not within Bowleven's control. or our JV partners, and may therefore require additional time to negotiate and receive the necessary approvals to reach the FID," Bowleven said in its March 30, 2022 press release. As a reminder, at the end of a period of development of the Etinde project which will have lasted 6 years, Bowleven (25%) and its partners New Age (37.5%) and Lukoil (37.5%) received on January 26, 2021 , the approval of the Cameroonian side to request a new authorization to exploit this oil and gas block, which covers an area of 2,316 km2 in the South West region of the country. "This is very positive news for the development of Etinde. Because, it eliminates the possibility for the government of Cameroon to withdraw the Etinde license from the partners of the joint venture, after the end of the initial period of implementation of the six-year development in January 2021,” said Eli. Chahin, CEO of Bowleven. Gas from Cameroon Thanks to this agreement, the holders of the Etinde license hoped, at the end of new exploration campaigns, to identify sufficient reserves to make an investment decision in 2021, and thus produce and market natural gas. This deadline was not met. The 2022 deadline that the project operators are finally giving themselves for making a final investment decision is also now questionable, due to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. However, the Etinde project is also of interest to Victoria Oil & Gas (VOG), parent company of Gaz du Cameroun (GDC), which has set up the very first natural gas processing unit in the country, in the suburbs of the Cameroonian economic capital. Indeed, on February 5, 2020, VOG signed a " non-binding letter of intent " with the project leaders, to source natural gas from the Etinde field, which could well become the 3rd operational gas field in Cameroon. , after Kribi (South) and Logbaba (Littoral).
Alongside grain exports which will be able to resume soon, there was also talk of taking stock of the projects initiated by the federation or in progress on African soil. From July 23 to 27, the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, toured the African continent which took him in turn to Egypt, Congo-Brazzaville, Ethiopia and Uganda. One of the Russian diplomat's objectives was to reassure Moscow's African partners that Russian grain exports will be assured for African countries, Deutsche Welle reports. During the joint press conference held in Cairo, Mr. Lavrov confirmed “the commitment of Russian exporters of grain products to fulfill all their obligations”. This is all the more so since Egypt and Sudan, for example, depend up to 80% on the import of wheat from Russia and Ukraine. The choice of the countries visited is not a coincidence. According to BBC Africa, Egypt is Moscow's biggest trading partner in Africa. Bilateral cooperation includes a nuclear power plant under construction (project led by the nuclear giant Rosatom and the cost of which amounts to around 25 billion euros, or around 16,399 billion F). Plans are also available for the construction of a Russian industrial zone near...