Cameroon to spend 5.6 bln USD for 5.5% growth in 2012

Cameroon's government is targeting a 5.5 percent economic growth in 2012 through the execution of the next state budget, which is estimated to be 5.6 billion U.S. dollars, officials disclosed on Monday. The blueprint was unveiled by a finance bill being examined by the country's parliament that has been meeting in an ordinary session since Nov. 1. "Despite the economic slowdown in most of the country's economic partners, Cameroon's economy is expected to maintain its growth trend," the Cameroonian Prime Minister Philemon Yang said. On Friday, he presented his government's new economic, financial, social and cultural program before parliament. He explained that in order to achieve this objective, the government will increase the volume of public investments as outlined in the Strategy Document for Growth and Job creation. He said the government has based its estimates on the following parameters: the real growth of the gross domestic product (GDP) at 5.5 percent; the rate of inflation to be maintained at 3 percent; the price of the barrel of petrol projected to cost 100 dollars and the exchange rate of 1 dollar to be 467.7 FCFA. The proposed 2012 budget of 5.6 billion dollars is higher than the previous one which was 5.142 billion dollars, an increase of about 448 million dollars. The government estimates that in the 2012 budget, 4.602 billion dollars will be raised through the country's own revenue, while 998 million dollars will be obtained through loans and grants. The prime minister said over 3.44 billion dollars will be used on recurrent expenditure, over 1.584 billion dollars will be spent on development expenditure and 575.2 million dollars will be used for payment of the country's debts. A well-placed source recently told Xinhua that issues related to the 2012 budget and economic growth forecast will form the agenda during a meeting to be held between the Cameroonian government and a team from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) between Nov. 28 and Dec. 5.