To improve industrial ecosystem: Interim mines minister, GECAM boss discuss boosting collaboration.

This was during an audience Prof Fuh Calistus granted a delegation of GECAM officials led by the President. The audience which on Tuesday June 11 Yaounde was also attended by some officials of the central administration of the Mines ministry. 

One of the key issues discussed during the audience was the setting up of a platform for exchanges and collaboration between the MINMIDT and GECAM.

The establishment of the such platform, it was said, will help in the coordination of actions before any decisions are taken.

Tawamba also used the occasion to unveil to the mines minister, the five main axes on which GeCAM’s new management team will focus.

Tawamba explained that for the next five years, they envisage to strengthen dialogue between the various stakeholders to improve the business climate of Cameroon as well as reorganise GeCAM's member structures, taking into account the specific needs of the State.

The GeCAM president added that the institution also seeks to reinforce relations with international organisations such as the International Labour Office, ILO, and give an important place to SMEs, which currently representing 90% of Cameroon’s industrial fabric.

It is equally within GeCAM plans to set up effective mechanisms to increase funding for employers in Cameroon.

It should be recalled that Douala-based renowned business mogul, Célestin Tawamba, was last April 2024 elected president of the recently created employer’s union, following the merger of GICAM and ECAM. This was during GeCAM’s first Elective General Assembly.

Tawamba, who is the founder of the Cadyst Group, leads an 18-man executive bureau of GECAM made up of economic leaders. GeCAM is committed to defend the interests of 90% of private companies in Cameroon. 

That is 1,000 companies from GICAM, 400 companies from ECAM and business organisation of businesses in the informal sector. Its contribution to the national economy should exceed 50% of GDP and almost 80% of tax revenue.

These issues include: agribusiness, with its import-substitution requirements and the need for local implementation to ensure food sovereignty; the ecological transition, with the new constraints linked to SME financing.

There is equally green financing and the cultivation of a genuine corporate social responsibility policy; the implementation of the government’s decentralisation policy, making the region’s economic hubs and the promotion of the social and inclusive economy.

Overall, GECAM aims to be more representative of all sectors of the economic fabric. 

This story was first published in The Guardian Post issue No:3141 of Friday June 14, 2024