Cameroon’s Minister of Economy Alamine Ousmane Mey wants to resume talks with Washington to rejoin AGOA.

Cameroon has relaunched talks with the United States to rejoin the AGOA programme (African Growth and Opportunity Act), a trade preference regime granted by Washington to sub-Saharan African countries. It was made known by Cameroon’s Minister of Economy, Alamine Ousmane Mey, announced on Monday 10 April.

For Alamine Ousmane Mey, one of the ways to avoid Cameroon’s over-indebtedness would be to reintegrate the AGOA, “The debt’s  coverage service by exports must be improved. That is why we are classified in a high-risk debt overhang position,” he said.“We are working in a very transparent and open way to resolve all the issues that have been raised,” said Alamine Ousmane Mey, referring to talks with US officials on reinstating AGOA.

The United States had removed Cameroon from the list of AGOA beneficiary countries at the end of 2019 year due to what the country’s government described as persistent human rights violations by Cameroonian security forces.

AGOA is a mechanism voted by the US Congress that allows eligible countries to export to the US duty-free. Thousands of products are concerned from the oil, textile, craft and agricultural sectors.