Small and Medium Sized enterprises have been sensitized on strategic methods in order to win international competitive markets and most especially those in the Central African region.
The African Development Bank brought SMEs from all the sub region of Central Africa in a seminar at Hilton Hotel yesterday16 October 2024 to sensitize the suppliers especially in Cameroon to better understand the procedure of the African Development Bank institutional procurement. The seminar witnessed the presence of the Minister delegate at the Presidency in charge of Public Contracts, Ibrahim Talba Malla.
According to the Director General of AfDB, this is the most important seminar they are doing for small and medium sized enterprises in Cameroon and in the sub region to permit them acquire the institutional markets from the group of the development bank. AfDB is known for its big projects that they finance. The volume of markets that they have to award in the continent is enormous and he wants them to be won by SMEs and Service providers in the sub region.
The seminar’s aim is to inform, sensitize and present the procedure of the bank and discuss with the SMEs and enterprises. These are contracts that are internationally competitive and the enterprises of the sub region are supposed to be in capacity to win them. They should be solid in their capacities, technically and financially and in their organization and governance. That is why the AfDB organized the gathering so that they can accompany these enterprises to win contracts in their own country. In the past years the contracts were won by other companies internationally, but N’guessan Serge Marie says they should be won by our own enterprises as he expressed himself to the press.
“This is a great opportunity for all SMEs and service providers of the Central African region to tap on the procurement process of the business opportunities offered by the institutional procurement of the African Development Bank. We know that AFD is an institution that provides resources for the big competitive market on the continent but SMEs do not know that the bank itself has opportunities for them for our institutional procurement. This is why we are
here today to sensitize all our service providers and SMEs to tap on those big contracts the bank is providing. Each year, the bank spends more than 5 billion CFA to renovate buildings, buy equipment to organize seminars. These opportunities need to be tapped by our SMEs in the region. This seminar I hope will help them be stronger and be competitive to be able to tap on
these contracts.”
He adds that there are projects coming up in the future and he wants more than majority to be won by the enterprises.
“The volume of contracts that we pass in the continent is enormous and last year for Cameroon, we passed about 1,3billion CFA and for the sub region, you multiply by 4 or 5. We hope to invest as from next year 10billion CFA for the Europe building of the sub region and all these contracts should be won by our enterprises.”
Throughout the day, the SMEs were drilled on how to be solid and ready to compete, to demystify the saying that big contracts are won only by international companies and register the maximum of enterprises to be many in order to participate in this call for tender.
