Cooperation : Agreement on Bamboo and Rattan
The International Organisation for Bamboo and Rattan (INBAR) now has its sub-regional office in Yaounde, Cameroon. This is the substance of the headquarters agreement signed on 2 September 2018 in Beijing between INBAR and Cameroon. The Cameroon Minister of External Relations, Lejeune Mbella Mbella and Dr. Hans Friederich, INBAR Director General, representing his organisation, signed the agreement at the Cameroon Embassy in China.
As a reminder, in March 2018, the President of the Republic of Cameroon, H.E. Paul Biya travelled to China to visit INBAR headquarters. The convention is a business opportunity for Cameroon given the country's potential for bamboo and rattan. According to dependable sources, the world trade in bamboo and rattan fetches more than 11,300 billion FCFA with more than 200 by-products for various sectors, namely cosmetics, construction, micro-component, furniture, medicine, textiles , composite fibre.
INBAR's activities cover training, capacity building, research and investment. The opening of its sub-regional office in Cameroon demonstrates the willingness of the Government of Cameroon to deepen relations with INBAR in order to enable Cameroon, in particular, and the entire Central African sub-region, in general, to make the most of its huge potential in bamboo and rattan.
In view of the development of these two resources, Cameroon will soon launch two projects to improve bamboo value chains and its use in soil restoration, with the assistance of two partner organisations namely the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the Global Environment Facility (GEF).
(Source: Cameroon Tribune No. 11670 of 3 September 2018.)