In an opinion column published by Louis Paul Motaze, Minister of Economy, Planning and Land Development (Minepat), the government member acknowledges that the weight of the internal debt is evaluated at approximately FCfa 1,100 billion as at end July 2016, and this is impacting on the activities of companies.

But, Minepat repeats, “the level of indebtedness of Cameroon only represents 27.3% of the GDP as at end July 2016, in other words, quite far from the community standard of 70%”, in the zone of the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC).

Minepat’s figures do not differ much from those of the Autonomous Amortisation Fund (CAA in French) who indicated in May 2016 that the public debt of the State of Cameroon was evaluated to stand at FCfa 4,502 billion as at 31 March, thus 26.8% of the gross domestic product (GDP).

These FCfa 4,502 billion, according to CAA, have increased by 16.9% year-on-year as, at 31 March 2015, the outstanding public debt of Cameroon was only of FCfa 3,853 billion.

Therefore, the country’s debt is made of 77.3% of external debt, equivalent FCfa 3,480 billion and 22.7% of internal debt, corresponding to FCfa 1,023 billion.