(Business in Cameroon) – In 2024, informal livestock exports from Chad to Cameroon continued to grow. According to the National Institute of Statistics (INS) report on Cameroon’s informal trade, these unrecorded transactions rose by 20.3% year on year, “consolidating Chad’s position as the main livestock supplier.”
Due to the porous border between the two countries, particularly in the Far North region, which serves as the main transit point for Chadian livestock, herders sold CFA35.69 billion worth of animals to Cameroon in 2024. These sales accounted for 49.8% of all informal trade between Chad and Cameroon during the year.
The INS noted that livestock exports helped Chad strengthen its position as Cameroon’s second-largest informal supplier—after Nigeria—with 27% of unrecorded imports, valued at CFA71.7 billion, a 15.1% increase following a decline in 2023.
Overall, Cameroon’s unrecorded imports from neighboring countries reached CFA265.7 billion in 2024, up 5.6% from the previous year. These imports, which represent significant losses in state revenue, mainly passed through the Far North (49.4%) and North (20.8%) regions, where smuggling networks for fuel, livestock, and manufactured goods thrive. Fuel and lubricants (22.1%) dominated the flows, followed by live animals (14.6%), the INS reported.
Meanwhile, smuggling activities, though still strong in the Far North despite Boko Haram attacks, declined in some areas of Cameroon in 2024. “Flows through the Southwest region fell by 38.7% due to the Anglophone crisis, while imports in the Adamawa (-17.5%) and East (-3.3%) regions also dropped because of logistical and security challenges, including poor roads and armed groups,” the INS noted.
