Business
Betting on a Future 'Made in Cameroon'
Folon © Da
Gaelle Laura Zambou Kenfack poses at her Zenka Market Shop in Yaounde © Daniel Beloumou Olomo
SHE THOUGHT IT WAS a "crazy gamble" at the time, but four years on, Gaelle Laura Zambou Kenfack has never looked back since creating a firm to produce and sell "Made in Cameroon" items. Zambou returned to Cameroon at the end of 2016 after 10 years working as a consultant for BMW in Germany, the one-time colonial power in the central African country of some 25 million people, highly dependent on imports. Other business leaders like her are betting on the "Made in Cameroon" (MIC) mark -- a concept
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September-October 2021
formally launched by the private sector five years ago to promote local production, processing and consumption. The goal is to overcome a long-standing weakness in Cameroon's economy: the lack of "value-added" activities that create jobs and generate money beyond the business of selling primary resources such as minerals, oil and timber. Stores labelled "Made in Cameroon" have already opened in several cities across the country. "Five years ago, there was only one store dedicated to the MIC mark. We are now at 33,"
DAWN
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