Sino-Cameroon cooperation:

China to finance construction of new Parliament building

The MINEPAT, L.P Motaze

Two conventions signed Friday 1 December 2017 between Cameroon’s Minister of Economy and Planning, Louis Paul Motaze, and visiting Chinese Vice-Minister of Commerce, Yu Jianhnua will enable Cameroon to construct a new National Assembly building and also maintain the Multi-purpose Sports Complex in Yaounde.

                The 1st convention signed in the cabinet of the MINEPAT is an economic and technical cooperation accord amounting to 200 million Yuan RMD (about 1.7 billion FCFA) being a donation without counterpart funding, for the construction for a new headquarters for the Cameroon national assembly.

                Plans to construct a new national assembly building had for long been envisaged, but sourcing for the requisite funding had remained a headache to the government. The project was therefore put on hold and has remained in the drawers for over a decade now.

                The Chinese donation is therefore heart-soothing to government, especially considering that only last week, a fire outbreak reduced the better part of the administrative block of the national assembly.

                The 2nd convention signed with the Chinese Minister was a letter of exchange bearing on technical assistance for the maintenance of the Yaounde multi-sports complex. The Chinese assistance amounted to 400.000 Yuans RMB, about 622 million fcfa.

                Minister Louis Paul Motaze and the Chinese vice minister of Commerce signed the conventions not before they had held a working session in the minister’s cabinet during which they re-examined Sino-Cameroon bilateral cooperation.

                “I took advantage of the visit of the Chinese vice minister of commerce to explain the difficulties faced by the economies of countries of the Central African sub-region and Cameroon in particular. I pointed out to my Chinese counterpart the nefarious effects such economic challenges may inflict on our bilateral cooperation. I used the occasion to pray the Chinese government, just as the IMF had suggested, to consider according us concessional prices and to also contemplate private-public partnerships with Cameroon,” Minister Motaze said.