CAMEROON – CCA Bank and Commercial Bank-Cameroun have received US$28.46 million (EUR27m) of new long-term financing from the European Investment Bank (EIB) to support investment by entrepreneurs and businesses across Cameroon and strengthen economic resilience to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The two new credit lines will be managed by leading local financial partners, EUR 15 million (US$15.81m) by CCA Bank and EUR 12 million (US$12.65m) by Commercial Bank of Cameroon.

The new business financing will support investment by manufacturingagriculture, services and trading companies across the country.

“Increasing support for Cameroon’s productive private sector is a major focus of our national development strategy (SND30),” said Alamine Ousmane Mey, Minister of Economy, Planning and Regional Integration.

 

“From this point of view, the State has a duty to put in place an optimal, conducive and incentive framework for the development of entrepreneurship, particularly among the priority targets of young people and women.

“Agreement of new business financing credit lines totalling more than 17.7 billion FCFA (US$28.57m), thanks to Cameroon’s Competitiveness Support Scheme, demonstrates a model for strengthening resilience for a sector severely impacted by COVID-19.”

The streamlined business financing represents the largest ever EIB support for private sector investment in Cameroon and is part of the EIB’s increased engagement with financial partners across Africa to strengthen economic resilience to the pandemic.

The two new 7-year EIB credit lines with CCA Bank and Commercial Bank of Cameroon will allow new financing to be provided to private businesses, notably SMEs, across Cameroon.

The new financing will allow longer average loan tenors for business loans and enable companies to better reflect the economic life of new investment.

“Increasing access to finance by entrepreneurs and businesses is essential to overcome economic challenges enhanced by COVID-19 and unlock business expansion,” said Thomas Östros, Vice President of the European Investment Bank.

“The EIB’s latest cooperation with leading financial partners here in Cameroon demonstrates how together EU and African partners are helping to beat COVID and ensure that private sector business can invest, create jobs and grow.”

The new cooperation represents the EIB’s first support for business investment with CCA Bank and the second with Commercial Bank of -Cameroun and the first private sector financing in Cameroon in two years.

The scheme is part of the EIB’s increased engagement across Africa to ensure that companies can continue to access finance when faced with unprecedented health, business and trade challenges linked to COVID-19, approved by European Union finance ministers in April 2020, within weeks of the impact of the pandemic being recognised.

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