The 2025 edition of Finance Week, organised by the specialised media EcoMatin, has rewarded some of the best-performing industrialists and financial companies in Cameroon in 2024. As in 2024, Afriland First Bank was awarded the Prize for Excellence in Banking. In 2024, Afriland First Bank achieved a balance sheet total of more than FCFA 2,000 billion, ‘a first’ for a Cameroonian company, according to the organisers.
Finance Week 2025, organised on 17 June in Yaoundé, awarded the Prometal group the prize for industrial investment leadership in the CEMAC zone and the prize for industrial sector leadership in Cameroon. Prometal is the leading metallurgy player in Central Africa, specialising in steel with an electric furnace that has a production capacity of around 200,000 tonnes a year. The group has also initiated projects to process bauxite and produce gas cylinders locally, as well as setting up a steel complex at the port of Kribi. Prometal was honoured alongside six other economic and financial players that performed well in 2024, including Afriland First Bank; industrialist MIT Chimie; portfolio management company Elite Capital Asset Management; stock exchange company ESS Bourse; life and non-life insurance company SanlamAllianz Cameroun; and telecoms operator Orange Cameroun.
« We were able to bring in top-level players, who explained, exchanged and put forward ideas. As you’ve seen, we’ve rewarded them for their efforts. We have highlighted these players who are consolidating our production fabric and preventing us from having to rely on imports. Prometal was mentioned earlier.
Emile Fidieck, Director of publication EcoMatin, promoter of Finance Week – Cameroon
In 2024, Cameroon imported goods worth CFAF 5,242.65 billion, compared with CFAF 4,993 billion in 2023, an increase of 3.9%. This increase in imports of essential goods and other products, in Cameroon as in the other CEMAC countries, is a cause for concern for the Bank of Central African States (BEAC), which is recommending greater investment in local production to reduce imports and, by extension, the demand for foreign currency which is putting a strain on foreign exchange reserves. This issue has been highlighted by the organisers of Finance Week, who have decided to focus on the BEAC’s new foreign exchange regulations and economic development in the CEMAC zone.
« The criticism today is: “We want more flexible exchange rate regulations”. You’ve seen the figures! Flexible? We’re going to find ourselves in the same situation as in 2014 – 2015, which exposed the sub-region to the risk of currency reform. Two months of imports at the time. The effort we need to make today is really to accelerate the import-substitution strategy as intended by the Heads of State. »
Yvon Sana Bangui, BEAC Governor – Central African Republic
Bank CEOs attending Finance Week were urged to support the new foreign exchange regulations aimed at combating tax evasion, money laundering, terrorist financing and currency flight. Célestin Guéla Simo, Managing Director of Afriland First Bank, which was awarded the Prize for Excellence in Banking at Finance Week 2025, also defended the need for economic players to invest in the transformation and local production of goods in order to raise Africa’s contribution to world trade above 3%.
