Regional free trade agreements
Cameroon has signed four regional free trade agreements, notably within the framework of the African Economic Community with the other member countries of the African Union (Abuja Treaty in 1981 and the AfCFTA in 2018), the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa (1964 and revised in 1994), the Economic Community of Central African States (1983 and revised in 2019), the Economic Partnership Agreement with the European Union (2008) and the Economic Partnership Agreement with the United Kingdom (2021).
Economic Partnership Agreement with the United Kingdom
The Bilateral Economic Partnership Agreement between Cameroon and the United Kingdom (UK EPA), signed on 9 March 2021 in London, was ratified by Decree No 2021/387 of 28 June 2021.
Initially a party to the EPA between Cameroon and the EU, the United Kingdom decided to leave the EU on 27 March 2017. As a result, the UK lost the benefit of trade agreements between the EU and its partners around the world. To avoid disrupting trade with its partners after its exit from the Union, the UK has embarked on the negotiation of new trade agreements and treaties with all its major trading partners.
The UK EPA, which is modelled on the EU EPA, will enable Cameroon to continue to enjoy preferential access (duty-free and quota-free) to the UK market for all its products, while the UK will be able to send 80% of its exports to the Cameroon market duty-free. It is referred to as an «interim» agreement because a number of clauses remain to be negotiated.
The bilateral EPA between Cameroon and the United Kingdom has a number of implications for trade between the two countries. Firstly, the agreement will help to safeguard trade between the two countries, and secondly to boost it (the United Kingdom is not one of Cameroon’s biggest partners, editor’s note). According to officials, this trade is worth around 263 million dollars a year (145 billion CFA francs), and is largely to the advantage of the UK, which, according to customs data, supplies Cameroon with manufactured goods, mechanical and electrical machinery and appliances, vehicles and pharmaceutical products.
On the Cameroonian side, banana exports to the UK currently account for around 13% of Cameroon’s total banana exports, or nearly 10 million euros (6.53 billion CFA francs). According to data from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), without a bilateral agreement between Cameroon and the UK, the latter’s exit from the EU could have led to an overall drop in Cameroon’s exports to the UK of 28%, representing a sum of almost 17.1 million US dollars each year, equivalent to 9.9 billion CFA francs.
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