BY NDUMBE BELL JOSEPH GASTON IN DOUALA
The Chamber of Commerce and their business development partners highlighted concerns at the 6th edition APIC 3-day workshop that began last Monday, June 19 at their headquarters in Douala, that the worst possible outcomes for project bearers and start-ups who lack the expertise or training to design good business plans and management strategies, would be to shut down within months.
To reverse this trend, the secretary-general of the Chamber Halidou Bello, who represented the President of the Chamber Hon. Christophe Eken, enjoined the good services of all to impart technical and managerial skills to project bearers and other new comers, so as to create self-employment and mitigate unemployment, increase the number of economic actors in Cameroon so as to improve Cameroon’s economic outlook or performance.
Halidou Bello recounted that in accordance with the responsibilities of the Chamber, the Chamber had initiated programs for the youth such as the Pilot Incubation Centre (PIC) and the Archipelago programs, while a private sector secondary school is envisaged in the ten regions, among others.
The Secretary-General also revealed that 215 project bearers and start-ups including 115 women and 100 men have benefitted from the APIC program since it was launched. He went on to thank partners such as the National Employment Fund (NEF), sponsors like Brasseries du Cameroun, MTN Cameroon, FOMARIC, Douala Urban Council for their logistic support, GICAM Enterprise support Fund (or DAE) and other related regional public representatives such as MinPMEESA, MINEFOP, MINPROFF, APME and a host of others. Grants to support CCIMC also came from Castel funds among others.
In a press briefing, at the headquarters corridor, the National Employment Fund representative said they fight unemployment among their 4 axes including creating enterprises and with good projects, “we can finance them in buy-am-sellam, Common Initiative Groups (CIGs) and our trained officers whose specialty is to follow-up during and after training. The specialists are deployed to upgrade their skills to build up their project proposals and manage these activities.”
As for the Deputy Mayor of CUD, he said the council is interested in the future of the young because when they become captains tomorrow in the business world, the council will grow in activity and they will have to impact the growth of the city and that of the nation as well.
According to Yetna Danielle, the MTN Foundation officer “One of the objectives is to support government initiatives. So as APIC is training women enterprises, the Foundation found it necessary to pay the training fees of the trainees as they work with the Chamber and APIC in this particular program.
The Secretary General reiterated all that he mentioned earlier.