DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/5a76a9/cameroon_infrastru) has announced the addition of the "Cameroon Infrastructure Report Q1 2011" report to their offering.
Cameroon Infrastructure Report provides industry professionals and strategists, corporate analysts, infrastructure associations, government departments and regulatory bodies with independent forecasts and competitive intelligence on Cameroon's infrastructure industry.
Cameroon's infrastructure sector remains mired by one of the worst Business Environments and Project Finance Landscapes on the continent. There have been some positive signs this quarter with large scale projects being signed by foreign investors, particularly from China. It is this foreign inflow of investment secured by the country's rich natural resources that has been responsible for BMI forecasts rising again for 2011. Construction industry value is expected to register 5.7% year-on-year (y-o-y) growth in 2011 and continue rising to reach 19.2% y-o-y by 2013. The industry will be valued at US$1.4bn by the end of the forecast period in 2015.
Key developments contributing to forecasts included: The announcement that subsidiaries of two large state-owned Chinese construction companies had signed agreements to construct new railway and port developments added upside to the forecasts. This is another instance of the well-worn Chinese model of investing in African infrastructure in order to ensure future resources. BMI believes that these relationships will pay dividends in the years to come and aid Cameroon as it attempts to diversify its economy. In September 2010, Australian iron-ore mining company Sundance Resources and Chinese construction company China-Africa Construction signed a memorandum of understanding to begin construction of a deepwater port at Lolabe and a connecting rail link.
Plans by US firm Hydromine to build and operate an aluminium smelter and two accompanying hydropower plants in Cameroon offer significant upside potential to our forecasts for the country's construction sector. If given the go ahead, the project, which is estimated to cost around US$2.8bn according to Reuters, would provide a boost to the growth outlook for Cameroon's construction industry, underlining our expectation that industrial construction, through foreign investment, will continue to drive sector growth in the next two to three years.
We continue to see the economy being driven forward by a relatively small number of major foreign investments in mining, oil & gas and infrastructure. In the coming year, the opening of the Rio Del Raybasin oil fields is the biggest new development, but construction is expected to continue on the LomPangar Dam (construction is expected to begin November 2010), Memve'ele hydropower station (at a cost of US$795mn) and the Kribi gas-fired power plant and multi-purpose port (at an estimated cost of US$655mn).
Over the longer term, we expect construction on the US$250mn Geovic Nkamouna project to begin in 2012 and two multi-billion dollar projects to begin in 2013. Relative to the size of Cameroon's estimated 2010 GDP of US$25bn, these projects should be a substantial boost to gross fixed capital formation, and we see this component of GDP growing by an average of 9.8% per year between 2011 and 2015,Our forecast for growth in 2011 has been reduced to 2.9% from 4.6% following a push-back of expected oil revenues from new fields, while the rest of our real GDP projections remain unchanged at an average of 4.7% per annum between 2012 and 2015 as new mega-project investment moves forward. The biggest risk to our outlook is a high concentration of bank loans to public enterprises, which could pose problems for the banking sector in the next year, though the impact on the wider economy will be muted by the underdeveloped state of the financial sector.
Companies Mentioned:
- Besix SA
- AES Corporation
For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/5a76a9/cameroon_infrastru