Cameroon's Economic Situation

Cameroon is a "rich" country, since it has many natural resources, namely in agriculture, forestry, mining and many oil companies. According to Wikipedia, its GDP is half of the one of the whole Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa (CEMAC), which gives it an important place at the regional level. But the Cameroonian people experience great frustration with their economic and social difficulties. With an unemployment rate that continues to grow, a private sector that is almost non-existent and some states that try somehow to limit the damage by recruiting fresh graduates in the public sector, in short there are very few offers for a huge number of job seekers.

This should in fact be seen as a challenge, and as an open door, that motivates Cameroonians and the whole African community to continue to fight for a better exploitation of our resources and a call for investors and entrepreneurs, nationals or foreigners, to boost and reshape the way business is done in Cameroon. In this article, we present the business climate in Cameroon, and ends with a discussion on prolific sectors.

Cameroon's Economic Situation
As a relatively rich country, Cameroon recorded since 1987, major drops in his economic activities and a serious financial crisis that forced the authorities to heavily cut jobs in public services, to compress investment in the country and to suspend the payment of the debt. Despite government efforts with the intervention of World Bank Group, with the resumption of recruitment programs, workshops and discussion forums consistent with the initiatives undertaken by the Government to promote and encourage business environment, but the results do not follow yet. With a growing population and an increasing number of unemployed graduates with, it is therefore essential to find solutions to:

• Strengthening the institutional framework for improved economic management and service delivery. 
• Support for private sector development to diversify the economy and accelerate growth.
• Improving the investment’s climate, in addition to building support for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and the continuation of direct investment transactions with the local private sector.
• The investment not only in the exploitation of natural resources, but also in sectors such as ICT where countries like China and India managed to dominate the world and boost their economies.

These are just a few examples of things that can be done, and changed in the way business is done in our dear country. And to continue this momentum, the culture of entrepreneurial spirit is also very important. Because in big countries like the United States and Germany, economic growth and unemployment reduction are driven by small and medium businesses. So as young generation, we must not only look for work, but also learn to make a difference by creating a business and change people lives by giving them jobs and financial security. That's how it works and has always worked.

Some prolific sectors
For those who want to start a business but are short of ideas; many possibilities are opened for you. They depend heavily on your industry or market or niche and your individual aspirations and determination. Then one can either:

•     Exploit an existing market

     It is clear that the majority of jobs created in Cameroon are in farming, oil, food, manufacture; and so by choosing one of these areas, you take less risk because many others are already there and they have laid the foundation so that you can easily master all the process of creating monitoring a project in these sectors. An example here is the food sector: opening a restaurant, a McDonald's, a supermarket ect. A disadvantage here is that competition is great and to keep your customers, you should compete in prices or in service.

• Doing in innovation

Here there is more risk but less competition. In fact, innovation is more difficult and requires more critical analysis. Here you must create your own market by educating the public about the benefits of the service you are offering. A good example here is the new technologies, although the population and business are giving increasingly more important to computers and new technology, it is always difficult to convince a CEO to shift from the old school papered business management to an computerize the management system, or creating a website and take advantage of internet marketing to boost sales and popularity. But once past this lock and if you have managed to acquire a certain reputation for the quality of your services or products, and with the fact that there is less competition you will lead the market and make much more profit.
Many companies are investing in computer maintenance and selling computer and other hardware equipments. For the moment, they have enough success against companies developing software products (Software).

But since I am a computer engineer and advocates for innovation, and education of African about the goods and benefits of new technologies, my advice for you is to start an IT business, so that in future we may be like India or China.

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