Minister reveals 19,651 SMEs created in 2023.

The announcement was made during the presentation of the Ministry’s Statistical Yearbook on Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, Social Economy Organisations and Handicrafts.

The statistical Yearbook was released on June 18 in Yaounde. The presentation was an opportunity to provide some striking figures on the behavior of SMEs in the Cameroonian economy.

It had as aim to evaluate the statistical data so as to master the demographics of small and medium-sized enterprises, the social economy and the craft industry, their growth and contribution to the national economy and the evolution and impact of policies implemented for their development.

“In 2023, over 19,600 new SMEs were created, a 24% increase compared to 2022, with 15,000 SMEs created,” Minister Bassilekin III declared. 

He also pointed out that SMEs, remain concentrated in the cities of Yaounde and Douala, with a considerable increase of start-ups created by young people. 

“This is an indicator of the enthusiasm of young people for entrepreneurship. Cameroon’s economic fabric remains largely dominated by SMEs so, we need to build a national consensus around the support for businesses, entrepreneurs and employers, so that we can help them contribute to meet the requirements of job creation in the country,” the minister stated.

He added that thanks to evaluations carried out during the recent forum on the social and solidarity economy, stakeholders revealed in 2023, 292 social economy networks were registered in the country, as well as other departmental and regional networks.

137,847 jobs created 

During the presentation, Minister Bassilekin III highlighted that together, the SMEs generated thousands of permanent temporal and occasional jobs.

“Another key element to note is that, in 2023, SMEs contributed to the creation of almost 137,847 jobs in Cameroon,” he said. 

According to the Statistical Yearbook, Cameroon’s economic fabric comprises 393,166 SMEs, including the 19,651 SMEs created in 2023, with 3,865 Social Economy Organisations, SEOs, and 3557 Handicraft Production Units, HPUs.

91.81% of the jobs were created by SMEs, 5.61% by SEOs and 2.58% by HPUs with the agriculture, fisheries and mining sectors recruiting the most, followed by the tertiary, trade and services and last the secondary sector. 

In terms of sector breakdown, 0.1% of SMEs are in the primary sector, 20.3% in the secondary sector and 79.6% in the tertiary sector. 

SME promoters and managers are mainly in the 30 to 40 age brackets, with 97% of SMEs in operation sole proprietorships with 62.2% men and 37.8% women respectively.

Need for more SMEs

Minister Bassilekin III has encouraged entrepreneurs to continue creating and innovating, which has as direct consequence an increase in the number of SMEs and jobs.

“Today, there’s a real zeal for creating SMEs, and we are witnessing a decline in the creation of large companies. As of 2023, Cameroon has a stock of 787 large companies,” the minister revealed.

He added that the Ministry will continue with` its actions to promote entrepreneurship, modernise and transform production units so as to make available high-quality and competitive consumer goods both on national and international markets.

This story was first published in The Guardian Post issue No:3148 of Monday June 24, 2024