The objective of the operation is, according to a source, to compensate for the production deficit of the loincloth for International Women's Day which the company has been facing for several years.
2.2 million linear meters. This is the quantity of loincloths that the Cameroon Industrial Cotonnière (CICAM) would have imported on the eve of the celebration in Cameroon of International Women's Day on March 8. A decision which, according to the online site EcoMatin, which cites one of its sources “made it possible to temporarily absorb the production deficit encountered for several years”. Indeed, still according to the same source, it is therefore with the aim of satisfying its local market that the public-owned company signed an agreement with an Indian subcontractor in order to ensure the availability of the March 8 loincloth for not less than ten billion CFA francs. In return indicates the same source, CICAM must reimburse its counterpart after the sales while maintaining its margin in this commercial operation..
However, some say, it would have been better for the company to resolve the problem of obsolescence of its production tools which, according to a report from the Technical Commission for the Rehabilitation of Public and Parapublic Sector Companies (CTR) has persisted since 2017. Year during which said production tool of the structure began to have repeated breakdowns. This is how, faced with growing demand and the technical inability of the structure to respond to said demand for March 8 loincloths, CICAM, recalls another source in the newspaper, will then begin to resort to imports in 2023.
The source adds that the company would have imported, during the aforementioned year, 1.1 million linear meters from the same subcontractor while producing only 900,000 linear meters. While in 2022, this production was around 1.5 million linear meters compared to 2.1 million in 2021. A decline of 28.5%. Yet concluded the newspaper's source "we have made a request to the State to repair our factories as best as possible at a cost amounting to hundreds of millions of CFA francs." A proposal which, if it had been validated, would have made it possible to boost production and avoid the outflow of foreign currencies due to imports as is currently the case.
Julien Efila
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