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The third phase of the economic partnership agreement between Cameroon and the European Union-EU has been launched.
According to the partnership which was signed yesterday August 4th, 2020, the customs tariffs on products in the third category will be progressively dismantled, at the rate of 10% per year. This will last until 2029, when the tariffs will be reduced by 100%. That is more than nine years from now.
The just launched phase is particularly concerned with “medical equipment, farm inputs pharmaceuticals, fertilizers, pesticides other than insecticides, cakes, paper and cardboard, pole bitumen and other petroleum residues, soda, gypsum, chalk, lime, gas, inorganic and organic chemicals, computers, special purpose motor vehicles, tractors, motorcycle parts and accessories, bicycles and wheelchairs, laboratory.” according to Business in Cameroon.
Cameroonian customs authorities have said that the products concerned by this phase are those that yield high tax revenues like; fuel, motorcycles, cement, passenger and transport vehicles.
It was on August 4th, 2016, that the country commenced with the implementation of the first phase of this partnership. At this phase the customs tariffs on products aimed at reducing poverty and improving the wellbeing of residents was gradually dismantled at the rate of 25% per year.
However, it was on August 4th, 2019 that these tariffs were fully dismantled
By implementing this economic partnership agreement, Cameroon lost XAF16 billions of customs revenues as of March 31, 2020, according to custom official.
August 4th, 2017, was when the second phase of the economic partnership started with the aim of boosting local production for a yearly 15% dismantling of customs tariffs on products. By 2023, these tariffs will be reduced by 100%, according to the partnership agreement.
Unlike in the just launched third phase, the concerned products here were; marble, lime, clinker, inputs for food industries, wire rods, generators, rotary electric converters, machines, and appliances, motor vehicles for the transport of goods, trailers and semi-trailers, wheelbarrows, some vehicle parts and accessories .
