For assisting them benefit tax, customs incentives: Private investors hail Investment Promotion Agency.

The private investors made the remarks during a tour by the General Manager of IPA, Marthe Angeline Minja, to some project sites Monday October 30. 

Minja embarked on the tour to evaluate the implementation of the convention IPA signed with the various private enterprises, as well as get them to give an appraisal of how the support of her institution has contributed to the realisation of their projects. 

Some of the projects have already gone operational while others are still under construction.

IPA had signed conventions with the enterprises within its mission to accompany companies willing to invest in the country. 

The conventions were within the framework of implementing Law No. 2017/105 of 12 July 2017 amending and supplementing certain provisions of Law No. 2013/004 of 18 April 2013 which grants tax and customs incentives for private investment in the country. 

The tour took the IPA General Manager to the GAODA International Investment Trading Limited, the ongoing construction site of the Radisson Serviced Apartments and Star Land Hotel. 

IPA General Manager touring GAODA Mining site 

IPA boss on objective of tour 

Speaking to reporters at the end of the field visit, Minja said the tour was IPA’s programme to follow-up and evaluate enterprises it is accompanying and see the level of work done in the implementation of the guidelines of the convention.

“At the end of this visit, we noticed that the government’s support to enterprises through the Investment Promotion Agency is a necessity in helping enterprises get established…,” she said.

She noted that without such support from the state, “it will be very difficult for some projects to be executed”. 

“There is also a lot of satisfaction at the level of the jobs created and the income made by home-based companies through their work,” the GM of IPA added. 

“For instance, at the level of GAODA Mining, the operators spend around 50 million for diesel each month and around 25 million every month for ENEO without counting the income coming into the National Social Insurance Fund through the same enterprise and in the water sector etc,” she explained.

Minja said the companies have also succeeded in developing their area of operation. 

“So, the feeling is that of general satisfaction about the projects that we visited…we will carry out the same exercise in Douala as from Wednesday,” she disclosed. 

Visit to GAODA Mining 

The first stop of IPA boss was at the first-ever stone transformation plant in the country, which was inaugurated May 18, 2021. 

The plant, with cutting and polishing machines, transforms stones into modern construction materials used for internal and external decoration. It is owned by Chinese company, GAODA International Investment Trading Limited (GAODA Mining). 

The plant is built near a large gneiss deposit that will be processed into granite, the main material the plant uses. The said deposit spans from Edimi to Okola, in Lékie Division of Centre Region. 

The company was enticed to invest in Cameroon through a forum IPA organised at Cameroon’s Embassy in Beijing, China, in 2018. Their installation was facilitated by an agreement signed in 2019 with IPA.

During her visit to the plant in Edimi, a locality in Nyom II in the Yaounde I Subdivision, the IPA boss was taken on a guided tour to the different sections of the plant and explained how transformation process unfolds. 

The Chief Executive Officer, CEO, of GAODA Mining, Huang Jianbing, thanked government through IPA and other sectoral ministries for the support that has seen the plant go operational.  

“IPA really helped us in terms of customs duties and taxes. For customs, we benefited and imported all our materials free of charge and for taxes, we pay for just half of the taxes we were supposed to pay in the first five years of production. IPA is really a huge help to our project,” he said.

Huang said the company is helping government to resolve the problem of import substitution by producing locally to reduce the country’s over-dependence on importation. 

He said the firm intends extending its capacity in order to satisfy local markets based on huge demands made from their first productions and to also meet demand in CEMAC markets. Their products, it should be said, are currently being used to construct the new National Assembly building. 

Huang appealed to the IPA boss to help them to mediate with the Ministry of Trade to fix the prices of their products and also enable them get authorisation from government to begin exporting to markets in the CEMAC.

He explained that the company transforms stones gotten from Nkolondom in the South Region and Batouri in the East Region into different materials including tiles, paving stones, tombstones as well as internal and external coating materials.

In the South Region, he said they have a stone known as Dolerite, which is in the black and grew colours and pure granite from the East Region in red, brown and white colours. 

With over 3.2 billion FCFA invested in the first phase, he said the extension will get the company to invest over five billion FCFA. The company has offered 112 direct jobs and uncountable indirect jobs.  

Huang said they exploit about 500 cubic metres of blocks per year and transform about 5,000 metre square per year. With the extension, he said they will move to 1,000. 

He added that they have sales of about 40,000 per month for products of internal coating while they have about 20,000 sales for those with external coating. 

Contraction of Radisson Serviced Apartments advancing 

The IPA boss also made a stop at the site to host the Radisson Serviced Apartments, which is under construction at the Golf neighbourhood at Bastos, Yaounde. 

Here, she was presented the different components of the hotel, which, once completed, will be the biggest in the entire sub region. 

The project is carried out by US-based Cameroonian, Alain Nouaga, and his wife. 

Both citizens, who had benefited scholarships from the government to study abroad, said their initiative to invest back home is in response to the call of the Head of State for Cameroonian diaspora to contribute to the development of the country. 

Without the contribution of the Investment Promotion Agency, Nouaga said, the project will not have seen the light of day. 

“The project is 45 billion FCFA. Without the help of the IPA, this project would have added like 20 billion FCFA. There is no way this project could have started,” he disclosed. 

Nouaga said the hotel is a complex of apartments that will be managed by the Radisson Group. It will comprise 220 apartments, 100 of which will be for sale to interested persons. 

He explained that it is a new concept which he has borrowed from the diaspora due to his travels and wants to implement back home. 

The project, he said, has given jobs to already 140 persons working with countless others having indirect jobs. 

The 16-storey structure will, upon completion, have 300 parking lots, large halls for events, transparent lifts, swimming pools, among others.  

Nouaga said with such projects, Cameroon will, in the future, be transformed like Dubai. He added that it will be realised by 2025 and will provide jobs to at least 350 persons once operational.  

IPA boss and GAODA Mining officials immortalize visit 

Star Land Hotel fully functional 

The General Manager of IPA ended her tour at the Star Land Hotel Yaounde, which long went operational few years back. 

Minja and her delegation were taken to the different types of rooms, halls and other facilities offered by the hotel. 

Officials of the hotel hailed IPA for playing key role in supporting them to benefit tax and customs incentives to ease construction. The hotel so far provides jobs to over 150 citizens.

The General Manager of the Investment Promotion Agency, it should be said, will continue with the tour in enterprises that have also benefited the support in Douala in the Littoral Region today.