• (Business in Cameroon) – Cameroon’s SME Bank to boost financing for dairy and fish value chains
• Plan targets $1.1 billion to cut food imports between 2024 and 2026
• Milk and fish imports weigh heavily on Cameroon’s trade deficit
Cameroon’s Minister of Fisheries, Livestock and Animal Industries, Dr. Taïga, signed an agreement on June 20, 2025, in Yaoundé with the Cameroon SME Bank (BC-PME) to support local milk and fish producers as part of the country’s agro-pastoral and fisheries import-substitution plan (PIISA).
Through this partnership, BC-PME will help ease access to credit for stakeholders in the milk and fish value chains by introducing tailored banking products to finance production and processing activities in these sectors.
The PIISA, which runs from 2024 to 2026 with an estimated budget of CFA680 billion (about $1.1 billion), aims to boost domestic output and reduce imports of rice, maize, wheat, palm oil, fish, milk, and other food products. Official data shows these imports have accounted for between 44% and 71% of Cameroon’s trade deficit over the past decade.
For example, figures from Cameroon’s National Institute of Statistics (INS) show the country imported 234,572 tons of fish in 2023, while domestic production stood at 230,000 tons. The cost of fish imports totaled CFA182.5 billion. Compared to the previous year, this represented a decrease of 7,226 tons (3%) in volume and CFA20 billion (10%) in value.
Over the same period, Cameroon spent more than CFA35 billion to import 17,217 tons of powdered and concentrated milk, an increase of CFA2 billion from the previous year.
