Cameroon regrets economic agreement with EU Commission
Afria News | Thursday 14 August 2008
Cameroon Regrets Economic Agreement With EU Commission
By Solomon Tembang
In what looks like crying over spilt milk, Cameroon’s economic experts are spending sleepless nights seriously reflecting on the budgetary impact of the economic partnership agreement, EPA signed with the European Commission last December.
At a one-day reflection confab in Yaounde recently, the experts presented the results of their study on what Cameroon stands to gain or lose in the agreement, pointing out that the signing of the agreement was one of those monumental economic errors made by a country in crisis. According to the study report, Cameroon will by that accord lose over FCFA 2.470 billion by the year 2030.
One of the experts, Lazare Bella, director of economic affairs in the Ministry of Finance indicated that it was not like crying over spilt milk because the damage has already been done but to find ways of helping the government better master the trend and economic impact of such an accord.
The EPA was signed between some 76 African, Pacific and Caribbean countries with the European Trade Commission in December last year as a prelude to the final accord with the European Union. The accord, accordingly, permits the elimination of custom barriers to the tune of 80 percent of trade volume.
Experts, however, say that under such free trade scheme, the poor economic countries stand the risk of being completely dwarfed as their export of predominantly primary products stand no chance of competing with those from European countries. One of such products from Cameroon to suffer, according to Armauld Emini, economics lecturer in the University of Yaounde II Soa, is banana, which so far does practically well in the international market, fetching reasonable export earnings for Cameroon.
Government, according to the experts, has to adopt economic strategies to dampen the effects of what they have described as a blind economic partnership agreement forced down the throat of the President by dishonest partners.
Civil society organisations in Cameroon and other African countries had openly protested in Yaounde against the signing of the agreement, brandishing placards with messages pointing to the dangers of the accord. Unfortunately, their warnings and pleas were not heeded to.
