Cameroon's investment framework offers meaningful incentives — exemptions during an installation phase, reduced rates in operation, and specific provisions for priority sectors. Companies entering the market generally discover the incentives before they discover what qualifying for them involves.
The approval timeline is the real cost
The framework is administered through an approval process with documentary requirements that assume a level of corporate paperwork many entrants have not prepared. Budget considerably more time than the statute implies, and treat the schedule as a range.
OHADA is the bigger picture
Company formation, security interests and insolvency all sit under OHADA rather than national law, which is a genuine advantage: the framework is regionally uniform and reasonably well understood. Counsel familiar with OHADA is worth more than counsel familiar only with Cameroon.
Local content and employment
Provisions on local hiring and, in extractives, local procurement carry real weight in approval decisions. Companies that treat them as a compliance afterthought rather than a plan tend to have slower approvals.
Repatriation
Foreign exchange regulation in the CEMAC zone governs profit repatriation, and the rules have tightened. Model the process and the timeline before committing capital, not afterwards.