eGUCE set to take off in Nsimalen come 29 December 2020.

The Foreign Trade Operations (GUCE) Single Window will officially launch its activities this December at the Yaounde-Nsimalen International Airport.

The e-GUCE service commissioning ceremony is being organised with the active participation of the Cameroon National Shippers' Council (CNSC). The event will be attended by representatives of CONAFE, the Board of Directors of GUCE, MINFI, MINADER, MINSANTE and MINEPDED, trade unions, professional groups and associations, the World Bank and general managers of public and private companies.

The CNSC and the GUCE are strategic foreign trade partners in Cameroon. While the CNSC is a public administrative establishment tasked with lending assistance to and protecting shippers' interests with a view to promoting foreign trade, the GUCE is an economic interest group (EIG) whose mission is, inter alia, to facilitate foreign trade procedures in order to reduce transit time and cost. Within this framework, it facilitates collaboration between the various international logistics chain stakeholders in order to ease border crossing of goods bound for or in transit in Cameroon.

As part of the deployment of its services, GUCE benefited from World Bank support via the Transport and CEMAC zone Transit Facilitation Programme (hosted by MINTP) to extend its services to three border posts including the Yaounde Nsimalen Airport. The equipment acquired for this purpose was kept in CNSC's premises at Yaounde-Nsimalen International Airport.

GUCE's deployment in Nsimalen will help in the operationalisation of its services, notably the electronic payment of customs duties and taxes and other charges (notably through YUP and CAMPOST online facilities), the execution of paperless procedures for users and technical administrations. This will streamline air freight operations and reduce the physical movement of users.

Collaboration between GUCE and CNSC resulted , inter alia, in the incorporation of the Electronic Cargo Tracking Note (ECTN) into e-FORCE, thereby making it secure.

It is noteworthy that after operationalising its service at Yaounde-Nsimalen Airport on 4 June 2018, the CNSC created its Regional Office in the Centre Region through one of the resolutions of the 36th session of its board meeting that held on 4 December 2020 in Yaounde.

Moreover, the CNSC Service at the Yaounde-Nsimalen International Airport, which is now equipped with a Shipper Assistance Service, has so far had the dual mission of issuing the Electronic Cargo Tracking Note (ECTN) and lending assistance to and protecting the interests of air transport shippers. In order to enable the CNSC Centre Regional Office to better cater for the needs and concerns of business persons of the air freight sector, the latter task will now be performed by the Shipper Assistance Service.

It is therefore up to the various users of the air transport mode to sign up resolutely and irreversibly to digitalisation, which is now indispensable for the emergence propounded by the Head of State.