Central Africa-European Union reaffirm commitment to sign economic partnership in December 2007; but how prepared is Cameroon?

Two Cameroonian members of government, Polycarpe Abah Abah, Minister of the Economy and Finance and Luc Magloire Mbarga Atangana, Minister of Trade, recently took part in the meeting of the Central Africa-European Commission Mixed Committee organized in the Brussels to lay a solid foundation on which the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) between the European Commission and ACP countries will evolve. At the end of the meeting, the two partners reaffirmed their commitment to conclude the EPA negotiations come December 2007.

The two Cameroonian ministers have been credited for the common position taken in Brussels. They are said to have coerced their colleagues of other Central African countries to systematically drop the idea of postponing the negotiations to a later date. Polycarpe Abah Abah and Luc Magloire Mbarga Atangana, considered such postponement to creating a legal vacuum in the EU-Central Africa relations.

This certainly sounds like a great achievement for the Cameroonian members of government. However, it is important to question why other Central African countries wanted the negotiations postponed.

Skepticism Preparedness

As the date of the effective implementation of the EPAs (1st January 2008) approaches, all kinds of concerns are already being recorded not only in the ACP countries but also in Europe. The reasons for such skepticisms are many but one stands out clearly. The EPAs will put an end to trade asymmetry and bring about serious consequences, for which many ACP countries are ill prepared. Customs and budget revenue will be lowered, competition with imported products ushered in, and pressure brought to bear on ACP competitiveness.

Some countries have been pointing an accusing finger on the European Union of wanting to open up ACP countries' weak markets further to European countries. They believe that doing so in controlled liberalization would be damaging to the ACP economies many of which remain embryonic. They equally argue that European countries still use concealed protectionism that incidentally distorts free competition as is the case in the agricultural sector.

In fact, many more arguments and opposition to EPAs keep coming up as 2008 draws nearer. But from the look of things, the process is so advanced that the issue is no longer how possible but how far will countries, especially ACP countries, absorb the shocks that may come along with the new dispensation. By convincing other Central African countries to drop the idea of postponing the negotiation, Cameroon seems to be pushing its seeds so fast and so far. Does this translate the country's preparedness when the EPAs go operational? A good question to ask, especially, when experts have carried out studies which show that Cameroon will incur 20 to 30% revenue loss when the market finally opens up.

This, however, does not mean the situation cannot be reversed. There is basically one strategy to do this. Considering that Cameroon, within the framework of the HIPC programme, is expected to step up non-oil revenue; which implies drawing more resources from taxes and customs duties, which incidentally are expected to be drastically reduced when the EPAs go operational, the country simply has to render its products more competitive. But competitiveness is itself dependent on the economic environment, the performance of the private sector, investments, production and marketing capacity.

How far Cameroon goes in building up these pre-requisites will depend, among others, on the exhaustive implementation of the resolutions of the public-private sector platform. Things will rather need to be done faster because time is running out!