According to the 2021 State accounts report published by the National Institute of Statistics (INS), Cameroon’s imports of goods and services grew by 13.8%, after a 17.1% drop in the year 2020, characterised by various international trade restrictions due to the Covid-19 pandemic. "This overall increase is the result of the recovery in the import of goods (17.3%), mitigated by a -0.8% decline in the import of services," explains the INS.

The INS data reveals that the volume of imports is mainly driven by five types of products, whose imports had increased by at least 19%, and with some almost up by 50%. They include "transport equipment (49.9%), chemicals (43.2%), agricultural products (23.2%), products for grain processing (25.0%), transport and storage services (19.0%)".

The agency in charge of compiling official statistics in Cameroon believes that this upward trend in the country's imports "took down GDP growth by 2.6 percentage points in 2021, a drop of 6.6 percentage points compared to 2020, when imports had accounted for a 4.0% increase in GDP".

Source: Business in Cameroon