SMEs ministry, French Dev’t Agency commit to boost agro-industrial sector.

This is what emerged from an audience granted the Country Director of the French Development Agency, AFD, Virginie Dago.

The AFD country head was received in audience by the Minister of Small and Medium Sized Enterprises, Achille Basilekin III.

During the audience in Yaounde, the two personalities took stock of the cooperation between both institutions as well as envisaged new prospects for the bilateral ties.

The audience gave Minister Achille Basilekin III, the opportunity to express to the Director of AFD, the satisfaction of government for the support offered by the French agency.

He had particularly expressed appreciation for the support offered the Integrated Program of Valorisation and Transformation of Agricultural and Agri-food Products, TRANSFAGRI programme, whose Phase 1 (2018-2022) has come to an end.

In addition, the Minister had submitted to AFD, the project for a Programme to Support the Development of Production Units in the agri-food, textile-cotton-textile-leather and wood processing sectors, PADUP-CAM.

He had also expressed the wish that French agency should involve his ministry more in the various programmes it is implementing in Cameroon.

The programmes include Choose Africa, whose phase 2 is currently being implemented.

The SMEs boss had also presented to the Director of AFD, the Ministry's expectations for which AFD's participation will be sought in due course.

In the course of the discussions, the possibility of setting up a joint working group was envisaged to pursue exchanges between the technical services of the two structures in order to concretise the areas of collaboration identified.

Speaking to the press at the end of the meeting, the Minister indicated that "beyond the classic tracks that participate in the development of the capacities of SMEs in the agri-food sector, we have emphasized new projects that revolve around the implementation, with the help of the AFD, of a development programme, the strengthening of SMEs in the agro-industrial sector, the textile-leather sector, but above all in the wood processing sector... It is through these sectors that the various programs with support lines, notably PROPARCO, AFD's subsidiary and Choose Africa can be deployed".

For her part, the Country Director of AFD, Virginie Dago said her visit allowed her to take stock of the existing situation, especially cooperation under the TRANSFAGRI program.

She also pointed out that the Ministry of Small and Medium Sized Enterprises is carrying out appreciable activities on which her institution intends to rely on in order to envisage new actions.

It should be noted that since 2015, France and Cameroon have been cooperating through different programmes including TRANSFAGRI programme.

The project aim is to capture the "enterprise" dimension of production units in rural areas, known for their vulnerability and fragility, by ensuring that their main functions of production, marketing and management, are properly fulfilled in order to participate more actively in the economic growth of Cameroon.

It should be recalled that France has many cooperation tools that can support the development of Cameroon's entrepreneurial ecosystem, in particular the French Development Agency, AFD which implements France's development and international solidarity policy and supports the Ministry of SMEs in the implementation of policies in favour of its targets, by financing many programmes.

PROPARCO, AFD's subsidiary, is in charge of private sector support.