Policy recommendations: reward domestic iron and competitiveness, not rolling behind a closed border

10.1 The organising principle: support conditional on measured competitiveness

The six recommendations, numbered 1 to 6 in the order of sections 10.2 to 10.7 and in Table 10.1, share one principle drawn from the evidence of Chapter 3: support for a domestic industry should be temporary, conditional on measurable performance, and measured against border prices [W24][W25][W04]. A domestic producer that sells at or below duty-paid import parity, meets the national standard and exports a growing share of its output deserves support while it learns. A producer that needs a prohibition to sell, or prices well above import parity, imposes a cost on builders and on the budget that a country with thin reserves and high debt-distress risk should not carry indefinitely (Chapter 1) [P07][P32].

Figure 10.1 sets out an illustrative sequence. Before entry, the conditions are quality certification, published price and cost information, and a signed power contract. In the first years, protection takes the form of a tariff, a cap at import parity and a modest procurement preference. As the industry matures, preference margins taper, export and domestic-sourcing targets rise, and from about the seventh year the industry faces border prices, with trade defence available only after an investigation. The timetable is indicative; the direction is what matters.

Source: Cameroon Steel analysis, drawing on the design rules of Chapter 3 [W24][W25][W04][W17].

10.2 Standards and public procurement: buy domestic when it meets the standard and the price

Enforce the standard for every supplier. Cameroon’s rebar standard NC 236/2024/06 has been mandatory since the decrees of April 2022, and the government refused in January 2026 to revise it to admit a lower grade [C34][C35]. Consumer complaints about counterfeit and substandard rebar, and sanctions against a producer for non-compliant bars, show that enforcement is uneven [C29][C35]. Systematic third-party testing at mills and at points of sale, published results, and the same rules for imports and domestic production would protect buyers and reward producers that invest in quality. Quality is the cheapest form of protection, because it excludes only products that should not be used.

Give public works a capped preference for domestic value added. Public investment of 2,026.3 bn FCFA in 2026 [C16] makes the State the largest single buyer of steel-intensive construction. The 2025 Finance Law already removes customs facilities from imported goods with local equivalents [P18]. A better-targeted instrument would follow India’s policy for domestically manufactured iron and steel in government procurement: a list of products, a minimum domestic value-addition threshold per product (15% to 50% in India), a preference applied in tender evaluation, and waivers where grades or quantities are not available domestically [W17]. In Cameroon, a preference margin of the order of 10% to 15% of the import-parity price, tapering over time, would reward domestic value added without allowing domestic prices to drift far above import parity. Sections and fabricated structures, which are not made locally today, should be on the list from the start.

Make value added, not location, the test. The preference should reward the share of value created in Cameroon, verified by the investment agency or customs, so that products made from domestic iron units earn more preference than products rolled from imported billets. This aligns procurement with the criteria of the 2025 investment ordinance, which already favours national natural-resource inputs and value added [W08].

10.3 Energy pricing: a transparent high-voltage tariff for large industry

Publish a framework tariff above 10 MW. No regulated tariff exists today for loads above 10 MW; contracts are bilateral and legacy prices vary widely [E15]. The regulator, ARSEL, should publish a high-voltage framework for large industrial loads with a capacity charge, an energy charge and an indexation formula, set by reference to the cost of generation and transmission rather than to the system average including distribution. The published benchmarks suggest a level near 45 to 50 FCFA per kWh (Chapter 7) [E15][E38][E17]. A high-load-factor steelworks then pays its full share of system costs and the utility gains a creditworthy anchor customer.

Make supply firm before tariffs are tested. In October 2026, 150 MW of industrial demand was unmet pending a transmission line [E16], and the Kribi gas-fired plant operated at about 30% of capacity in 2025 [E15]. Completion of the 225 kV line and substation serving the Kribi industrial zone, designed for 100 MW initially and 330 to 400 MW later [Z43], and clear rules for schedulable load, under which a melt shop times its heats around the evening peak, would matter as much as the price. An arc furnace offers that flexibility; it is not an interruptible load, because its output depends on running most hours of the year.

Clarify gas allocation and taxation. Gas-fired reheating, and any later direct-reduction module, need long-term gas supply. After the departure of the floating LNG vessel in July 2026, Sanaga Sud gas needs domestic buyers [E09][E04]. A published audit of remaining reserves, a framework for long-term supply agreements with industrial users, and a ruling on whether the special tax of 70 FCFA per cubic metre applies to industrial gas [E11] would let investors and the State plan.

10.4 Trade policy prudence: tariffs, not prohibitions; investigations, not decrees

Replace the rebar prohibition with a tariff, in steps. The prohibition has localised rolling but has kept prices above duty-paid import parity (Chapter 3) [C44]. Once quality enforcement is in place, a phased return to the 20% CET for rebar, with transparent monitoring of domestic prices against import parity, would cap the cost to builders, restore customs revenue and keep effective protection for re-rollers at a high but bounded level (about 60%, Table 3.2).

Correct the tariff escalation in the new external tariff. The harmonised ECCAS-CEMAC tariff applied since January 2026 is the opportunity to remove the inversion that gives wire-rod rolling negative effective protection (5% on wire rod against 10% on billets) and to avoid taxing the iron units that a domestic industry needs at the same rate as finished products [P23][P24]. Cameroon should argue in the customs union for a low rate on iron ore, DRI and scrap, a moderate rate on billets and a uniform rate on finished long products.

Use trade defence only on evidence. Global excess capacity of about 640 Mt in 2025, rising to 745 Mt by 2028, and record Chinese exports create a real risk of dumping into unprotected markets [G16][G19]. The right response is a capacity to investigate and impose anti-dumping or safeguard duties under WTO rules when injury is proven, not standing prohibitions. Cameroon’s non-agricultural tariffs are almost entirely unbound at the WTO (binding coverage of 0.2%), which gives legal room, but rules-based investigation is what makes such measures credible and temporary [P26].

Phase out administered prices as competition returns. Homologated prices were introduced to protect consumers in a closed market [C44]. With the border open to tariffed imports, the market price is capped by import parity, and homologation can give way to price monitoring.

10.5 Iron units: make domestic iron the priority of industrial policy

Organise scrap. The only quantified study of scrap arising in Cameroon dates from 2006 [C42]. A new survey, licensing and formalisation of collectors, weighbridge and payment standards, and a clear and stable policy on scrap exports, for which no legal text was found [C58], would raise the domestic share of iron units for the whole industry. The gain is real but bounded: national arising was estimated at 53,000 to 62,000 tonnes a year in 2006, and existing mills already depend on it [C42][C38]. Chapter 9 shows that 30,000 tonnes a year of domestic scrap, the planning level for a new works, adds about 7 bn FCFA a year of foreign exchange retained, and that scrap collection can raise the saving per tonne, but the national pool is far too small to supply a works of 1 Mtpa, where the large gain requires domestic DRI, illustrative.

Turn the local-transformation obligation into iron units. The 2023 Mining Code requires each mining convention to fix a share of production for local transformation, with a minimum of 15% [W09], and the Mbalam convention is reported to commit its holder to transform 15% of production locally; the same source presents Cameroon Steel as the national steel hub of that programme [O17]. The obligation should specify the form of the transformed product (concentrate, pellets or direct reduced iron), its quality, arm’s-length pricing and the timetable, so that it creates a usable supply of iron units rather than a symbolic quota. The strategic committee on mines-metallurgy integration set up by the Prime Minister in December 2025, whose mandate includes a reliable ore supply for local steelmakers [W30], is the natural forum.

Plan the direct-reduction step as public infrastructure, not only as a project. Direct reduction needs ore of suitable quality, pelletising, gas and port handling. Sub-Saharan Africa produced only 0.09 Mt of direct reduced iron in 2025 [T13]. Coordinating ore, gas and port decisions so that a direct-reduction module becomes feasible after the first phases is a task for the State as much as for investors.

10.6 Financing and foreign exchange: finance the industry without new sovereign risk

Use development and export-credit finance, not the budget. With a high risk of debt distress, the State should avoid guarantees and equity commitments that add to public liabilities [P32][C12]. Development finance institutions, export-credit agencies and African lenders are active in the sector: Afreximbank’s €40 million facility to Prometal in September 2026 is one example [C38]. Their standards on environmental and social performance, procurement and governance also raise the quality of projects.

Let exporters manage foreign exchange within CEMAC rules. The 2025 ordinance allows investors to hold accounts in foreign currency and transfer income, subject to the CEMAC exchange regulation [W08][P10]. For exporting industries, clear and predictable rules on retaining export proceeds to service foreign-currency debt reduce financing costs without weakening the pooled reserves.

Tie fiscal incentives to performance and publish their cost. The operating-phase incentives of the 2025 ordinance are substantial (Chapter 6) [W08]. Granting them against the Article 7 criteria, monitoring compliance annually and publishing each convention’s tax expenditure would answer the IMF’s concern about tax expenditures and protect the regime’s credibility [P09].

10.7 Measurement: a public scoreboard against border prices

Policy conditional on performance needs measurement. A short annual scoreboard, published by the ministry in charge of industry with data from customs, the INS and producers, would track: the domestic price of rebar and sections against duty-paid import parity; the share of domestic iron units in national steel production; steel imports by product and origin; exports by destination; quality compliance rates; formal employment; and taxes paid. Chapter 11 sets out the data gaps that such a scoreboard would close.

Table 10.1 Recommendations matrix

Source: Cameroon Steel recommendations, based on Chapters 1 to 9. Institutions are indicative: ANOR (standards agency), MINCOMMERCE (commerce), MINMAP (public procurement), MINTP (public works), MINMIDT (mines, industry and technological development), ARSEL (electricity regulator), MINEE (water and energy), SNH (national hydrocarbons company), SONATREL (transmission operator), MINFI (finance), MINEPDED (environment), API (investment promotion agency), INS (statistics).

These recommendations are deliberately sector-wide. They would apply to every existing and future producer, and they would make the case for any new works, including Cameroon Steel’s, depend on what it adds to the country’s iron-making capability, its supply of products not made locally and its competitiveness at border prices. That is the test this paper proposes, and the test we expect our own project to meet.