Lukong Pius Nyuylime
10 March 2008
The assertion that primary products contribute 85 per cent to the economy of the Central African sub-region will be validated or invalidated tomorrow at the Yaounde Hilton.
Economic experts from the Ministries in charge of the economy of various countries, representatives of international institutions, representatives of economic communities and representatives of the financial and private sector, will screen a study carried out to that effect under the supervision of the Economic Commission for Africa Sub-regional Office for Central Africa.
According to Mamadou Hachim Koumaré , Director of the Central African ECA Office, the study was carried out on the basis of two observations: countries of Central Africa depend so much on the exportation of their primary products including traditional agricultural products, food products and hydrocarbon and this dependency is strongest compared to other sub-regions in Africa; secondly, existing analytical work shows that dependency on basic products retards economic growth especially where the institutional framework of the country is weak.
Conducted in 2007 by a team of experts from the ECA Central African Office and other economic actors in the sub-region, the study is expected to act as an important guide for policy formulation in the various countries of the sub-region.
Ahead of the validation of the study, authorities of the ECA Central African Office have been attempting explanations on the importance of primary products to CEMAC and regretting that this has so far been thwarted by a number of things. These include: the lack of good road infrastructure, which renders things difficult for the population to take their products to the market and low level of local processing. According to one of the experts, the sub-region benefits only five to ten per cent of the added value as a result of exporting primary products to be processed abroad.
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