How to valorize the riches of the subsoils for the benefit of the CEMAC countries? The Regional Economic and Monetary Community launched the development of the project last week. An idea more than ten years old but slowed down by successive crises. Meeting by videoconference on Monday April 4, the Ministers of Mines of Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Congo-Brazzaville, Gabon, Chad and Equatorial Guinea agreed on a timetable for moving forward.
First the diagnosis. A CEMAC team begins a tour of the six countries to take stock of the situation, identify the strengths of each other and where transnational projects can be developed.
Antoine Dembi Duval, director of industrial development, mines and tourism at the CEMAC Commission is currently on mission in Douala. For example, he points to a paradox: Cameroon continues to buy abroad the raw material used to manufacture aluminum, bauxite, while the country is home to a deposit with potential worthy of the largest global projects.
Another paradox, Central Africa imports agricultural fertilizers that it could manufacture locally with the potash available in the Congo.
A regional policy will aim, he explains, to industrialize the mining sector step by step and by segment, by transforming the raw material on site. A pooling of resources to manufacture alloys for construction materials in particular.
A long-term process because to develop a regional mining market, it is also necessary to resolve the issues of energy and transport.
Next step for Antoine Dembi Duval and the Cemac team: Chad. And at the end of his regional tour, the writing of a first document, which must be presented at the beginning of 2023.
►Also read: Cemac has found 3.8 billion euros of investment for its infrastructure