Over 4bn Adopted for APME’s TRANSFAGRI Program

By Doh Bertrand Nua in Yaounde

APME Officials examining draft TRANSFAGRI program budget

The Integrated Programme for the valorisation and transformation of agriculture products and agric-food industries (TRANSFARI) under the Small and Medium Sized Enterprises Promotion Agency (APME) has adopted its 2020 budget that stands at close to FCFA 4.4 billion. The budget which has witnessed an increase of over 50% as compared to that of 2019 was made known during the steering committee meeting that brought together stakeholders involved in the first non-financial component of the Programme in Yaounde Friday 20 December 2019. The meeting was chaired by the President who doubles as the Minister of Small and Medium Sized Enterprises, Social Economy and Handicraft, Achille Bassilekin III.

                Minister Bassilekin IIII said out of the close to FCFA 4.4 billion budgeted for 2020, FCFA 3.1 billion will be used for investment to assist producer groups in the six production basins of Littoral, Centre, West, Northwest, Adamawa, and North Regions as well as finance agric-food industries to assist in wealth and job creation. He commended management for the close to 95% execution of the 2019 budget which stood at over FCFA 1.4 billion.

                As presented by the TRASFAGRI Focal Point Technical Adviser, Tchana Joseph, some 314 food processing enterprises were funded through microfinance institutions which are partners of the programme. He said the programme also gathered, synthesized and disseminated technical and economic data on 11 value chains and their regulatory environment to beneficiaries, partners and other users through relevant physical or virtual media, trained more than 550 companies on checks services, supported over 100 SMEs in promotional actions organized throughout the national territory and trained and accredited 119 consultants to carry out SME advisory activities among many other activities.

                As projected in the meeting, the programme will  in 2020 increase the intensify support operations of SMEs in the six production basins sustained by the check service mechanism, ensure effective provision of technical and economic information to SMEs and other actors benefiting from non-financial business services, intensify operations linking SMEs to financial institutions to ease real access to financing, continue strengthening capacities of human resources and pursuit benchmarking studies to provide APME with the experiences and good practices that exist in other places.

                TRANSFAGRI it should be noted is funded by the debt reduction contract under the French Development Agency to the tune of roughly FCFA 17 billion. It intends to among other things increase agricultural production activities and commercialization of products, transformation and processing in the different value chains, financing of SMEs in the sector, training of producer groups as well as follow-up and evaluation of activities of partner organisations. The program which involves four different ministries is under the coordination of officials of the Ministry Economy Planning and Regional Development, MINEPAT and is strictly followed up by the Small and Medium Size Enterprises Promotion Agency (APME).