In Cameroon, the national institute for statistics INS suspects rice importers of fraudulently reexporting their products to Nigeria. Indeed, in 2019, Cameroon’s rice imports surged, inexplicably affecting the country’s food products import expenditures (up by 14.9% to XAF807.5 billion).

The institute notes that the volume of rice imported by the country rose from 561,112 tons to 894,486 tons (up by 59.4%). This cost the country XAF231.6 billion, up by 60.9% compared to the value of rice imports in 2018.

“Given the dynamism of the local production, we can suspect that the surplus is reexported to neighboring countries, Nigeria notably due to the importance of its domestic market,”  the INS comments. These reexportations are facilitated by the exemptions granted by the Cameroonian government for rice imports. Thus, the operators import rice duty-free and reexport it to increase their profits.

Because of that practice, the INS announces that it is elaborating a permanent mechanism to monitor trans-border trades. The mechanism will provide an overview of Cameroon’s transborder trades and help curb these unfair reexportations.