For some days now, a group of experts from the Roland Barger firm with a team from the Cosumaf, the Commission for monitoring financial market in central Africa, is in Cameroon. The reason for their stay after passing through Gabon, Congo and Equatorial Guinea, revealed during a press conference held in Douala on September 12, 2015, is to collect data from various economic operators in the frame of a study of the financial market’s potential in the CEMAC.

Asides unlocking the potential of the two most competitive stock markets in the CEMAC, namely the Bvmac in Libreville and the Dsx in Douala, this study carried out by the Cosumaf and financed by the World Bank aims to draw out a diagnosis covering the 15-years history of the CEMAC’s financial market, and provide recommendations on a roadmap which will boost market activity in the community.

To this end, Georges Ferré, a consultant from Roland Berger, said the experts’ team intends to visit Morocco and the Southeast of Asia, to learn from their individual experience in terms of stock markets. Indeed, at a point in time, the economies of these two countries were quite similar to that of the CEMAC now, but succeeded in developing highly efficient financial markets.

However, it should be recalled that, in almost 15 years, the financial market still stalls to take off in the CEMAC (Cameroon, Gabon, Congo, Chad, RCA and Equatorial Guinea), where businesses have difficulties in obtaining funding to grow. In Douala and Librevillle for example, only about six businesses are listed, and the two stock exchanges are mainly fueled by the various bonds issued by the governments and institutions such as the BDEAC and the SFI.

According to experts, the lack of market culture, the high costs of services, the lack of transparency and the bad governance characterizing businesses in the region, are the main reasons for the populations’ disinterest in the financial market within the CEMAC.

BRM