Cameroon’s steel gap lies in iron units, not in rebar

Main findings

1. The world is long in steel and short of defences in Africa. World output fell to 1,849.4 Mt in 2025, OECD-estimated excess capacity is heading from 640 Mt to 745 Mt by 2028, and China exported a record 119 Mt. Large markets have raised barriers, with 207 restrictions in 62 countries; Central Africa has almost none outside Cameroon’s rebar ban [S08][S09][S10][S11].
2. Africa is the growth exception, and imports fill it. African steel use rose 10.4% to 45.0 Mt in 2025 against production of 29.8 Mt; imports jumped from 23.9 Mt to 32.9 Mt in a year, 59% from China. Sub-Saharan Africa’s shaft-furnace DR plants made only 0.09 Mt of direct-reduced iron (Midrex plant data); worldsteel estimates about 2.7 Mt more, mostly coal-based, in East Africa [S02][S12][S13].
3. Cameroon’s market is about 450 kt and 15 kg per person. On the provisional census count of 22.7 million people the figure is about 20 kg; on any count it is below the 22.5 kg average of Africa outside Egypt and South Africa [S01][S14][S15][S02].
4. The drivers of growth are in place. Construction grew 4.3% in 2024 and 2025 against GDP growth of 3.5%; the 2026 budget includes 2,026.3 bn FCFA of public investment; and the population is projected to reach 42.2 million by 2040, with 8 million more urban residents [S16][S17][S18].
5. Imports are iron units and flat steel, not bars. Chapter 72 imports rose 125% from 2019 to 412 kt in 2025. In 2023 billets cost US$151.7m, 49% of the chapter 72 bill; bars and rebar cost US$3.3m, about 1% [S19][S07][S05].
6. The domestic industry can roll more than it can feed. Installed transformation capacity is about 1.2 Mt at about 50% utilisation; rebar capacity is 627 kt (as read; section 5.2) against 180 kt of demand; local scrap covers about 40% of the mills’ needs and imported billets about 60% [S20][S01][S03].
7. The largest producer is financing imported billets. On 28 September 2026 the Prometal group signed a €40m revolving facility with Afreximbank to import billets, a clear signal that metal, not mill capacity, limits output [S20][S21].
8. Demand reaches 0.7 to 1.2 Mt by 2040, and the iron-unit gap widens in every scenario. In the base case demand is about 920 kt in 2040; sections and flat steel grow fastest; and the iron units needed beyond domestic scrap rise from about 170 kt to between 225 kt and 520 kt a year. Even in the high case, rebar demand stays below today’s capacity.
9. Cheap billets set the benchmark, and on imported iron a Kribi billet matches it only at the low end. Billets were quoted at US$465 to 480 per tonne FOB from China and Russia on 3 October 2026 and land in Douala or Kribi at about US$570 to 650 duty-paid. An indicative cash cost for a billet melted at Kribi from imported scrap and hot-briquetted iron is about US$590 to 780, before capital charges; the 10% duty on imported metallics is about as large as the central gap. Rebar, by contrast, is priced administratively, at about 633,000 FCFA per tonne in October 2023 [S22][S23][S24] (section 8.6).
10. Policy should move protection upstream and towards quality. Rules-based trade instruments, standards extended to structural steel, procurement that requires certified products and pays on time, and incentives for melting and section rolling would serve SND30’s goals better than an open-ended ban on one finished product [S25][S23][S26].