
Cameroon
Overview
Cameroon is a country located in Central and West Africa along the Atlantic Ocean. It is bordered to the northeast by Chad; to the west and north by Nigeria; the east by Central African Republic; and to the south by Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and the Republic of the Congo. Two of its border regions in the northwest and southwest are English-speaking, while the rest of the country is French speaking. The currency in Cameroon is Central African CFA franc.1 Cameroon has a population of just over 25 million inhabiting an area of 475 440 km2. The country is rich in natural resources, which includes agricultural products like cocoa, coffee, cotton, maize and cassava, oil, gas, minerals and high-value species of timber
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Cameroon recorded a yearly population growth rate of 2.59 percent in 2020 as against 2.62 percent in 2019. With a population density of 56 per Km2 (145 people per m2), Cameroon is now 56.3 percent urbanized (14 941 523 people in 2020) as against 55.7 percent in 2019.2 The country is classified as one of the world’s least developed countries3 and is considered a lower middle income country. Despite this, Cameroon has recorded fairly robust Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth for the past five years. The country’s GDP is supported by improved electricity supply from new hydroelectric dams and the start of natural gas production from a new liquefied natural gas offshore terminal.4
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The GDP per capita income (on a yearly basis) in Cameroon was CFA884 981.8 (US$1 514.6) as at 2019 and has been estimated to be around CFA907 857.2 (US$1 553.75) in 2020.5 Also, Cameroon GDP per capita based on Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) increased substantially by 3.27 percent between 2018 and 2019. GDP per capita based on PPP was reported to be CFA2 310 909.25 (US$3 955) in 2019 compared to CFA2 237 871.7 (US$3830) in 2018.6 Over the last 20 years, Cameroon’s economy has been commodity dependent with oil accounting for over 50 percent of total exports. Agriculture employs more than 50 percent of its workforce
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n the fourth quarter of 2019, the economy grew 3.8 percent as against 3.6 percent growth in fourth quarter 2018. Mining and construction was primarily responsible for the growth in the secondary sector which was 5.1 percent as against 4.5 percent in the third quarter of 2019.7 The annual economic growth of the country is on average 4.7 percent, resulting in the
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Access to finance
The Madagascar financial and banking sector grew by 4.2 percent in 2019.13 From 2018 to 2019, real estate credit increased by Ar79.7 billion
KEY FIGURES
Main urban centres
Freetown
Exchange rate (1 July 2020): 1 USD = [a]
Yaounde, Douala, Bafoussam, Garoua, Bamenda, Nkongsamba
1 PPP$ = [b]
Total population [b] | Urban population [b]
Population growth rate [b] | Urbanisation rate [b]
GDP per capita (Current US$) [b]
Percentage of population below national poverty line [b]
Unemployment rate (% of total labour force, national estimate) (2017) [b]
Proportion of adult population that borrowed formally (2017) [b]
Gini coefficient (2017) [b]
HDI country ranking (2018) [c] | HDI country score (2018) [c]
25 876 380 | 14 741 256
2.58% | 3.63%
US$1 498
64.9%
4.3%
6.5%
46.5
150 | 0.56
GDP (Current US$) [b]
Inflation rate (2018) [b]
GDP growth rate [b]Yield on 10-year government bonds
Lending interest rate
US$38 760 million
4.02%
13.50%
n/a
14.53%
Number of mortgages outstanding (2019)
Value of residential mortgages (Current US$)
Ratio of mortgages to GDP
Typical mortgage rate | Term | Deposit(2019)
Number of mortgage providers
Number of microfinance loans outstanding
Value of microfinance loans in local currency units
Number of microfinance providers
n/a
n/a
20% | 20 years | 35%
n/a
4
n/a
n/a
4121
Total number of formal residential dwellings in the country
Total number of residential properties with a title deed (2019) [g]
Number of formal housing units built in this year(2019)
Price of the cheapest, newly built house by a formal developer or contractor in an urban area in local currency units (2019)[h]
Size of cheapest, newly built house by a formal developer or contractor in an urban area(2019) [h]
Typical monthly rental for the cheapest, newly built house(2019) [F]
Time to register property [h]
Cost of standard 50kg bag of cement in local currency units (2019)[h]
Type of deeds registry: digital, scanned or paper [h]
World Bank Ease of Doing Business index rank [h]
Number of procedures to register property [h]
Cost to register property as share of property price [h]
World Bank DBI Quality of Land Administration index score (0-30) [h]
n/a
307
n/a
18 000 000 XAF
104m2
12 500 XAF
5000 XAF (US$8.56)
Paper
167
5
87 days
13.7%
7.0
Percentage of women who own a house alone: Total |Urban (2018) [k]
Percentage of households with basic sanitation services:
Total |Urban (2018) [k]
Percentage of households with no electricity: Total | Urban Urban Urban (2018) [k]
Percentage of households with 3+ persons per sleeping room:
Total |Urban (2018) [k]
Percentage of urban population living in slums (2018) [m]
2.6% | 2.2%
39.4% | 37.5%
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37.8% | 10.0%
27.5% | 26.5%
33.7%
NB: Figures are for 2020 unless stated otherwise.
[a] Xe.com
[b] World Bank World Development Indicators
[c] Human Development Reports, United Nations Development Programme
[d] ] Community Credit Company.(CCC)
[e]] National Institute of Statistic
[f]Ministry of Lands,House and Human Settlements
[g]Cameroon Real Estate Corporation
[h]Ministry of Urban Development and Housing
[i]Cement Cam Dangote
[j] World Bank Ease of Doing Business Indicators
[i]Demographic and Health Surveys, USAID
[i]United Nations Human Settlements Program
(UN-HABITAT)
demand for new infrastructure to be built.8 In Cameroon housing finance accounts for less than one percent of GDP. This is low compared to other developing countries like Thailand, Chile, Malaysia, Costa Rica, etc. where outstanding mortgage loans to GDP varies between 15 and 36 percent.9 Inflation rates in Cameroon were reported to be 2.45 percent in 2019 and estimated to be 2.8 percent in 2020.10
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As at the 31st of December, 2019 Cameroon had 418 accredited microfinance institutions (MFI) operating.11 There are 15 commercial banks, 26 insurance companies, a state pension fund, and a state-owned mortgage bank, as well as non-banking financial establishments.12 The unified standard exchange of Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC) is now officially hosted by Douala. This begun in July 2019, combining into one what were previously two exchanges.13
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Access to finance
Access to finance is limited particularly for retail and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) because of the domination of Cameroon’s financial system by foreign commercial banks. These banks prefer lending to government, multinationals and large businesses. Some commercial banks provide mortgage loans. The geographic distribution of bank branches is highly skewed towards the main urban and semiurban centres, with most of the semi-urban and rural areas having limited access to formal banking facilities.
Less than five percent of Cameroonian citizens have access to a bank account.14 There is however an operational service known as Mobile Money (MM). MM is a service which permits customers to gain access to financial services using cellular devices, by dialling Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) codes. Four significant platforms for mobile money services (MMS) in Cameroon include, MTN Mobile Money, Orange Mobile Money, Express Union Mobile Money and the recently launched Nextel Possa. Some of the services offered by MM includes the transferring of funds between bank accounts and mobile money accounts; sending and receiving of money transfers; money withdrawals; money deposits; visa card facility; etc. With the introduction of innovative technology, MMS now contribute 73 percent of the total variance in the turnover of the SMEs in Douala.15
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A state housing bank, Crédit Foncier du Cameroon (CFC) plays a principal role in the mortgage sector. The CFC has advantage over local commercial banks because it receives a salary levied tax thereby having access to long term funding. This mechanism allows it to grant long-term loans (for as long as 30 years) at subsidized rates (approximately seven percent). Considering the extremely limited volume of credits it grants and the difficulties CFC faces, households' options for financing housing are limited. Furthermore, the CFC currently only supports the financing needs of the upper income class making it difficult for the development of a robust mortgage sector.16
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The banking sector is highly concentrated and dominated by foreign commercial banks which hold more than 50 percent of total financial system assets. The capitalization of small domestic banks is well below the average of banks in the CEMAC region. Domestic banks’ profits are approximately two percent compared to 20 percent for foreign banks. This puts the domestic banks in a much weaker position. The outcome is that most banks hold large amounts of excess reserves as a percentage of deposits and therefore have a huge amount of unutilized liquidity.
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The International Bank of Cameroon for Savings and Credit (BICEC) provides two Housing Microfinance Market (HMF) products in Cameroon. These are land purchase and home construction/acquisition. The tenure and interest rate of these loans are seven years and seven percent, respectively. The age limit for borrowers is between 18 and 55 years.17 Further, unsecured loans are provided to customers that are salary earners by Cameroon’s La Régionale d’Epargne et de Crédit. These loans have five years maturities and are cheaper than microcredits but with conditions that are almost the same with that of traditional mortgages.18 To increase access to funding, variants of the contractual savings for housing (CSH) scheme have been developed in Cameroon. The CSH plan is a contractual agreement between a financial institution and a customer that grants the customer the right to acquire a privileged mortgage after a minimum saving period.19
Affordability
The unemployment rate in Cameroon decreased to 3.30 percent in 2019 from 3.40 percent in 2018 and is estimated to be around 3.2 percent in 2020.20 The population below the poverty line in Cameroon was 37.5 percent in 2014; 40 percent in 2018 and was estimated to be around 30 percent in 2019.21 According to the World Bank collection of development indicators, income poverty in Cameroon was reported at 0.66667 in 2019.22 GINI index was 39.8 percent in 2018 and Human Development Index (HDI) value for 2018 is 0.563. This puts Cameroon in the medium human development category, positioning it at 150 out of 189 countries and territories.
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COVID-19 response
Cameroon recorded the first COVID-19 confirmed case on the 6th of March, 2020 in Yaoundé.42 Cameroonian Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute closed schools, universities and training centres on 17 March 2020.On 18 March 2020, the country closed its land, air and sea borders.
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To cushion the effects of the pandemic, Cameroon reduced its monetary policy rate by 25 basis points (bps) to 3.25 percent; a decrease of the Marginal Lending Facility rate by 100 bps to 5 percent from BEAC as well as macro financial aids from the Commission Bancaire de l'Afrique Centrale (COBAC). Furthermore, the BEAC also decided to resume liquidity injections into the system with longer maturity, of up to one year.43
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However, there has not been any specific incentives recorded as it concerns direct palliative on housing during the lockdown.
Cameroon’s HDI value increased from 0.445 to 0.563 between 1990 and 2018, an increase of 26.4 percent.23 Approximately 90 percent of jobs in Cameroon are informal. Accounting for nearly a quarter of total employment, the informal sector is the main source of non-agricultural employment (half of non-agricultural employment).24 The formal private sector is not well developed and employs only a small percentage of the labour force. Through its agencies and parastatals, the government is the largest formal sector employer in Cameroon.
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In Cameroon, the average gross earning for most salary people is CFA2 093 298 (US$3 583.6).25 From the growing diaspora population, most families receive monthly remittances whose inflows continue to increase. Remittances as a percentage of GDP for 2019 in Cameroon are 0.86 percent.26 Primarily, these remittances are used to fund projects for those in the diaspora (which often includes housing construction) and for the basic needs of families. The cost of a newly built 104 m2 house is CFA18 000 000 (US$30 821). The typical rental price for the same type of house is CFA125 000 (US$213.9).27 Meanwhile, there are no subsidies tied to housing which are not related to mortgage.28 Other basic services like heating, cooling, refuse disposal, electricity and water supply for a 85m2 residential apartment would cost 47 500.00 CFA (US$81.3) per month.29
Housing supply
Despite the interventions of the government to curb the housing problem, which is largely the exorbitant prices of housing/building supplies in the country, Cameroon’s housing challenges remain. The cost of a one bedroom apartment in the city centre is CFA97 333.33 (US$166.6), the cost of one bedroom outside of centre is CFA55 000 (US$94.1), the cost of three bedrooms in city centre is CFA 308 437.5 (US$527.9), while the cost of three bedrooms outside of centre is CFA170 625 (US$292).30 For new households in the urban and semi-urban areas, a shift from ownership towards rentals occurs as the rate of urbanization increases and as the middle class grows.
In its efforts to deliver social housing, the government has entered into partnership investment agreements and has also signed memorandums of understanding (MOU) with various foreign bodies and companies, a number of which involve direct foreign investment (DFI). On July 14, 2020, the government handed over house keys to 32 beneficiaries who had completed their payment for low cost residential apartment. This project is part of an MOU for the construction of 10 000 social homes that was signed by the Qatari Haba Business Group and the Cameroonian Government. The houses are located in a secure and accessible area. The government has promised to deliver more keys to the subscribers, upon completion of housing payment and in line with the executed MOU with Qatari Haba Business Group. The government has also promised to continue construction by developing 4 500 collective residential apartment in Douala and Yaounde. Additionally, 50 individual housing units will be developed in Kribi, Edea, Dschang, Bangangte, Soa, Limbe, Sangmelima, chief towns of Douala and Yaounde, and other cities.31
CAMEROON
Annual income profile for rural and urban households based on consumption (PPP$), 2019
PPP$40 001 – PPP$10 000 000

PPP$23 001 – PPP$40 000
PPP$12 001 – PPP$23 000
PPP$8 001 – PPP$12 000
PPP$5 001 – PPP$8 000
PPP$3 601 – PPP$5 000
PPP$2 401 – PPP$3 600
PPP$1 601 – PPP$2 400
PPP$801 – PPP$1 600
<PPP$800
Population:
25 876 380
Urbanisation rate:
3.63%
Cost of cheapest newly built house:
18 000 000 XAF
House price PPP$:
PPP $76 529
No. of households (thousands)
Urban households that could afford this house with finance:
5.58%
1 PPP$:
235.21 CFA franc
Economic growth of Cameroon dropped by three percent due to COVID-19. This crash in the economy has ultimately affected the real estate market. As a result of the pandemic, many people have lost their jobs and can not access bank loans. To meet up their urgent cash needs, many people sold their properties at less than the market value. This fall in prices, with fewer creditworthy buyers, made the real estate market crash by approximately 30 percent. In addition, Cameroon is also experiencing a decline in its equities market and this has made it even more difficult for many real estate companies to overcome the crisis. The outcome is that many real estate investors in these kinds of complicated situations sell their properties at lower price to recover money.32
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In Cameroon, the majority of land is considered national land which is administered by the State for the “public good” and held under customary law. This includes all unregistered land that is not managed by the state and is occupied or used by rural communities. Only a relatively small percentage of Cameroonians have registered their land rights. Today, most pieces of land in Cameroon are still held and managed informally through local tenure arrangements. These local arrangements are a combination of statutory and customary tenure rules which form a complex and sometimes, flexible set of rules that creates uncertainty, promotes land conflicts and hinders local development.33
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Land titles are the only legal means of holding land rights. It is possible to obtain ownership rights over land in the private domain of the State. It however, requires that land be registered, and a development plan be drafted as well. Title on land effectively occupied and used before 1974 can be applied for. At present, communities and individuals are not permitted to apply for title on lands that are not effectively occupied and used. They are however allowed to continue fishing and undertake other activities on vacant land. This opportunity is however not guaranteed as the state can evict communities from these lands and reallocate them.
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Globally, in the World Bank’s Doing Business Report 2020, Cameroon is ranked at 175 in the ranking of 190 economies on the ease of registering property.34 The small number of land certificates and titles can be attributed to several factors, which prompted the Cameroon government in 2005 to simplify the titling procedures. The government reduced the number of steps and departments involved in the process of reviewing and approving a request to title land and established a timeline for processing applications. Another improvement ushered in by the 2005 reform was the creation of a single agency within Ministry of State Property and Land Tenure (MINDAF) to handle most services concerned with the titling process. According to MINDAF, only 125 000 title deeds were issued between 1884 and 2008 (approximately 1 000 titles per year on average).35 Property tax is payable annually with or without an ownership certificate or an administrative or judicial order issued on real estate in Cameroon.
Tax is charged at 0.1 percent of the assessed property value. Properties exempted from real property tax are those belonging to sporting bodies', associations, clubs, or accredited properties intended for sports and sports facilities.36
Despite the crash in the economy, the real estate market in Cameroon is doing well. Rate of returns are attractive in certain areas as Yaounde and Douala with a Return on Investment (ROI) ranging from 7 to 10 percent. Specifically, city office rent in these areas get an ROI rate of 10 percent while commercial rents and residential rents get 8.57 and 7.5 percent respectively.37
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Property markets
Policy and legislation
Cameroon undergoes an intense right-to-land dualism between modern and customary/traditional rights due to its French and British colonial heritage. In the Muslim regions, principles of Islamic law have also been incorporated into customary law.38 Through Decree No. 2005/178 of 27 May 2005, the institutional framework for the implementation of land legislation was put in place. Thereafter, the Ministry of State Property and Land Tenure, was established as well as Decree No. 2005/481 of 16 December 2005.39
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Currently, the main regulatory tool in terms of planning in the country, are embedded in the following decrees/laws: n Decree No. 2008/0737/PM lays down rules for safety, hygiene and sanitation that are applicable to construction works; n Decree No. 2008/0736/PM for revising and drawing up town planning documents and lays down the conditions for doing so; n Decree No. 2008/0738/PM organizes procedures and processes for land-use; n Decree No. 2008/0740/PM sets rules on penalties in the event of breach of town planning rules; and n DecreeNo. 2008/0739/PM lays down construction and land-use rules.
40 In Cameroon, land is classified as private, public or national by formal law. Lands owned by individuals, groups, corporate entities or the State are called Private lands. These lands must be titled and registered. Public land includes the waterways, sea side, roads and parks that are held by the State for the benefit of the people of Cameroon. All other land which includes grazing land, land held by communities under customary law, most unoccupied land and informal settlements is classified as national land. Use or rights to national land can be allocated by the State to individuals or groups or such land be converted into State public or private property.41
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Opportunities
Cameroon can be a good option for foreign investors as the economic growth of the country is on the average of 4.7 percent every year, resulting in the demand for new infrastructure to be built.
The wholesale funds made available by the African Development Bank (ADB); growing middle and upper classes; strong local partnerships; increasing capital inflows from the diaspora and international investors; increased local investment; better legislation and reforms; and access to finance, makes the country a fertile ground for investors.
Developers of rental housing, affordable housing, luxury residential and housing finance providers can leverage on the existing challenge of providing housing for the growing and urbanizing population. If thoroughly investigated, this could be an opportunity as almost half of the population lives in informal dwellings and settlements.
Websites
World data www.worlddata.
info Statista www.statista.com
Heritage https://www.heritage.org
The Global Economy https://www.theglobaleconomy.com
The Central Bank of West African States (French: Banque Centrale des États de
l'Afrique de l'Ouest) www.bceao.int
African Development Bank www.afdb.org
WAEMU Affordable Housing Finance www.worldbank.org