• Corporate investment in Cameroon rose 28.5% in 2024, INS reports

• Firms shifted toward financial assets over physical production equipment

• Aging fixed assets increased, signalling slight deterioration in capacity

Investment by companies operating in Cameroon maintained a steady pace throughout 2024. According to the report on the economic and financial situation of companies in 2024, published on Jan. 21, 2026, by the National Institute of Statistics (INS), spending on the acquisition of equipment, software, financial assets and other items increased by 28.5%, compared with 8.8% in 2023.

However, the INS notes that companies established in Cameroon are increasingly opting for intangible rather than physical investments. The country’s official statistics agency says the investment dynamics observed in 2024 were marked by a shift in corporate investment strategies, increasingly focused on the acquisition of financial assets at the expense of physical equipment.

In other words, companies now prefer to invest in transactions such as stock purchases, subscriptions to public offerings and private placements rather than acquiring equipment to improve their production capacity. This trend may at least partly explain the dynamism of asset management companies, the government securities market managed by the Bank of Central African States (BEAC), and the success of fundraising efforts on the Douala stock exchange by CEMAC states, Cameroon, Congo, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Chad and CAR, as well as companies and sub-regional organizations.

The new corporate investment policy is not without consequences for production capacity. In 2024, “the production tools of companies slightly deteriorated, with the aging rate of fixed assets rising to 60.6% in 2024, compared with 60.3% the previous year. In other words, the production tool has lost nearly six-tenths of its initial value due to various factors, specifically wear and tear and obsolescence,” the INS reports.

BRM, with Business in Cameroon