(Business in Cameroon) – Fitch Solutions, a subsidiary of Fitch Group that oversees the credit rating agency Fitch Ratings, has ruled out any increase in fuel prices in Cameroon for 2025. In a report on the country’s economy released in February 2025, the firm states that fuel prices at the pump will remain stable throughout the year, largely due to the upcoming presidential election.
According to the document, following reductions in fuel subsidies in February 2023 and February 2024, both of which led to increased transportation costs, “we do not expect another cut in fuel subsidies in 2025 because it is an election year”. However, there seems to be a slight confusion in the wording. What Fitch Solutions likely meant is that no further increase in fuel prices is expected, rather than no further reduction in subsidies.
Contrary to the report’s claim, Cameroon’s 2025 Finance Law does include a reduction in fuel subsidies. “It should also be noted that the trend of decreasing fuel pump price subsidies will continue, with subsidies dropping from CFA263 billion in 2024 to just CFA15 billion in 2025,” states the explanatory notes of the law, which was passed by Parliament and signed into law by the President.
Despite this sharp cut in subsidies, the Cameroonian government has made it clear that fuel prices will not go up in 2025. “Many people saw that subsidies for petroleum products were decreasing and assumed this meant fuel pump prices would go up. But that’s not true! That is not part of the Finance Law. The subsidy is decreasing because international market prices are also going down. When international prices drop, they align more closely with pump prices here, reducing the need for subsidies,” Finance Minister Louis Paul Motazé explained in a video posted on social media in late December 2024.
This outlook from both Cameroon’s Finance Minister and Fitch Solutions aligns with a previous report by Fitch Ratings, published in November 2024. “The government has committed to reducing fuel subsidies by increasing retail prices by 15% in 2024, following a 21% increase in 2023. However, given the importance of social stability and the upcoming presidential election, we assume that the government will not raise fuel prices in 2025,” the agency projected.
