INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC CONFERENCE ON THE THEME “INVESTING IN CAMEROON, LAND OF OPPORTUNITIES”
(Yaounde, 17-18 May 2016)
OPENING SPEECH BY H.E. PAUL BIYA, PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF CAMEROON
Yaounde, 17 May 2016
Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen,
First of all, I would like to express my profound gratitude to all the personalities from the world of politics, business and finance gathered here today. I wish to thank you for accepting our invitation.
Cameroon highly appreciates your presence at this conference. To us, this clearly marks your interest in the modernization of our economy and improvement of the living conditions of our people.
Permit me now to recall the objective, or rather, objectives of today's conference.
Its purpose is firstly, to review the key components of Cameroon's economy; to determine the private sector's potential contribution to its expansion; and thereafter, assess the country's real opportunities that would ensure its integration into the global economy, in a more judicious and helpful manner.
The findings of this review will be highly instrumental in implementing our economic policy. They could, perhaps, be useful to other African countries facing a situation similar to ours.
Secondly, and this will certainly mark the highpoint of our conference, we will facilitate meetings between public and private project initiators alike, and foreign as well as local investors. To borrow from economic lingo, this conference affords an excellent opportunity to create a veritable "investment market" right here.
It is not my place here to give you an overview of Cameroon's economy. Certainly, that will be done during the roundtable devoted to the macro-economic situation and growth prospects.
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For my part, I would rather highlight some salient facts of a general nature in a way that would reveal our innermost views as well as our genuine aspirations for lasting prosperity in the current geostrategic context.
I will start off with a few words about our continent:
The continent that in the sixties was considered "doomed" has become, according to some observers, a "continent of the future"...
Of course, I am sincerely delighted, but at the same time, I must admit that I remain rather cautious about the overly optimistic and unqualified forecasts made by some people.
They highlight the growth rates ranging across countries from 5% to 10% over the years.
However, we must recall that growth is not an end in itself. Moreover, it has been acknowledged, even by the most prominent international economic institutions, that we must go beyond the quantitative measurement of growth rate, to seek a tangible improvement in people's living conditions.
What matters here is, first of all, our ability to actually put people at the centre of our economic endeavours.
Serving the human person and his overall well-being should constitute the be-all and end-all of our investment choices, and our priorities for wealth creation.
Similarly, it is only through sustainable management of global resources that we can ensure true prosperity.