CEMAC adds a regional market of half a billion dollars, but neighbours are building their own mills

6.1 A market of 67 million people and half a billion dollars

The Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC) shares a currency pegged to the euro, a regional central bank and a common external tariff, now being harmonised with the wider Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS, or CEEAC in French) [S131]. Its six members had a combined population of about 67.4 million in 2025 and a combined GDP of about US$134bn, of which Cameroon accounted for about 44% (derived) [S132].

Source: UN Comtrade, reporter and partner (mirror) data, 2023 [S05][S06]. Chad and Equatorial Guinea from partner data. Total derived. Base map: Natural Earth; positions schematic; no project boundaries shown.

Comtrade reports CEMAC trade in values, not consistently in tonnes, so the regional market can only be sized in dollars with confidence. In 2023 Cameroon imported US$310.4m of chapter 72 products, Chad US$73.4m (on its partners’ export data), Gabon US$68.5m, the Republic of Congo US$33.9m, Equatorial Guinea US$11.6m and the Central African Republic US$3.4m [S05][S06]. The total, about US$501m, is the best available measure of the CEMAC chapter 72 market (derived). The structure differs sharply between Cameroon and its neighbours: Cameroon imports semi-finished steel to roll at home, while the others import mostly finished products, including reinforcing bar.

6.2 Chad and the Central African Republic: landlocked markets served through Douala

Chad is Cameroon’s natural export market for steel. It is landlocked, its trade runs largely through the Douala corridor, and its population, 21.0 million in 2025, is projected to reach 31.3 million in 2040 [S132][S18]. Its partners reported exports of US$73.4m of chapter 72 steel to Chad in 2023, of which US$36.1m came from Benin, US$26.5m from Cameroon and US$4.6m from the United Arab Emirates [S06]. Cameroon’s reinforcing-bar exports to Chad were 25.9 kt in 2023, worth US$23.1m, most of Cameroon’s total bar exports that year [S05]. The Central African Republic is much smaller, with chapter 72 imports of US$3.4m in 2023 and about 1.0 kt of reinforcing bar, and received 0.2 kt of Cameroonian bars [S06][S05].

Source: UN Comtrade [S05][S06]; INS foreign trade notes for Cameroon’s exports [S114][S107][S07].

The corridors to Chad and the Central African Republic are among the reasons cited for the second phase of the Yaoundé-Douala motorway, which is expected to improve the Douala-N’Djamena, Douala-Bangui and Douala-Brazzaville routes [S77]. Benin’s significant share of Chad’s imports shows that Cameroon does not have a natural monopoly on this market: steel also reaches Chad from the Gulf of Guinea ports further west.

6.3 Gabon and the Republic of Congo: oil economies with growing rebar imports and new mills

Gabon is a small but relatively high-income market, with 2.59 million people, GDP per person of about US$8,263 and an urban share of 92% in 2025 [S132]. Its chapter 72 imports more than doubled from US$31.9m in 2019 to US$68.5m in 2023, and it imported 52.2 kt of reinforcing bar in 2021, 40.2 kt in 2022 and 50.7 kt in 2023, worth US$44.1m [S06]. A 2023 comparison found reinforcing bar in Cameroon about 25% cheaper than in Gabon and about 10% cheaper than in Côte d’Ivoire [S133].

Gabon is building its own capacity. The Prometal group is developing a plant at the Nkok special economic zone with a first phase of 120,000 t a year of scrap-based reinforcing bar for 38 bn FCFA, although other reports give 30 bn FCFA and 170,000 t [S21]. The Fokou group, which has operated Aciéries du Gabon with 70 kt a year of reinforcing bar and 10 kt of tubes since 2016, launched a new scrap unit at Port-Gentil of 2,500 t a month for 6 bn FCFA in September 2026 [S30]. In July 2026 Gabon cut VAT on locally made reinforcing bar from 10% to 3% [S29]. A press report of 1.107 Mt of Gabonese rebar production in 2024 is implausible against import volumes of about 51 kt and is not used here [S30].

The Republic of Congo, with 6.48 million people, imported US$33.9m of chapter 72 steel in 2023 and US$45.5m in 2024, and its reinforcing-bar imports rose from 12.8 kt to 32.8 kt between those years [S06]. Its chapter 73 imports, US$393.2m in 2023 and US$437.6m in 2024, are much larger than its chapter 72 imports, reflecting the tubes, structures and equipment used by its oil industry [S06]. Gabon’s chapter 73 imports, US$235.3m in 2023, follow the same pattern [S06].

6.4 Equatorial Guinea: a contracting oil economy

Equatorial Guinea, with 1.94 million people, has the second-highest GDP per person in CEMAC but a shrinking economy: the World Bank series shows real GDP falling 5.9% in 2025 [S132]. Its partners reported US$11.6m of chapter 72 exports to it in 2023, of which US$4.7m came from China, US$4.2m from Türkiye and US$0.85m from Cameroon [S06]. Cameroon also exported 0.8 kt of reinforcing bar there in 2023 [S05]. It is a small, project-driven market.

6.5 Nigeria: a large market whose imports have collapsed

Nigeria is not a member of CEMAC, but its border with Cameroon and its size make it relevant. Its population is projected to grow from 237.5 million in 2025 to 312.7 million in 2040 [S18]. Its chapter 72 imports were US$683.2m in 2019 and US$930.4m in 2021, then fell to US$560.0m in 2022, US$272.0m in 2023 and US$225.7m in 2024, a decline of 76% from the 2021 level, after the naira devaluations reduced dollar GDP from about US$487bn in 2023 to about US$252bn in 2024 [S06][S132]. Its chapter 73 imports were US$754.8m in 2024 [S06]. Nigeria’s statistics bureau recorded iron and steel imports of more than N1 trillion in 2025, and industry representatives put the annual steel import bill at about US$4bn, a figure that depends heavily on definitions and exchange rates [S134].

Source: World Bank population estimates and projections [S132][S18]; UN Comtrade [S06].

Nigeria’s own production base is weak relative to its size. Global Energy Monitor counts about 0.6 Mtpa of operating capacity in plants of at least 0.5 Mtpa and 3.0 Mtpa of electric furnace capacity in development; the Delta Steel direct reduction plant at Warri (1.02 Mt a year) is idle, and the Ajaokuta complex, designed for up to 5.2 Mt a year, has remained largely dormant [S31][S13][S134]. A Chinese investor, Stellar Steel, announced a US$450m hot-rolled coil plant with a target of mid-2026 [S65]. For a Cameroonian producer, Nigeria is a market to watch rather than a base case: its currency and trade policy are volatile, and its land border with Cameroon carries limited formal steel trade.

6.6 Trade rules: CEMAC, CEEAC and the African Continental Free Trade Area

Cameroon applies the CEMAC common external tariff. Its 2023 structure had bands of 0%, 5%, 10% (raw materials and equipment), 20% (intermediate goods) and 30% (consumer goods) [S135]. A harmonised CEEAC-CEMAC common external tariff, adopted on 18 October 2024, has applied in Cameroon since 1 January 2026; sources describe its bands differently, as 0% to 40% or 0% to 30%, and its rates for steel lines had not been published at the research cut-off [S131][S135][S136]. Originating goods have traded duty-free within CEEAC since 1 January 2018 [S124]. Cameroon’s 2025 Finance Law, which withdraws customs facilities from imported goods that have local equivalents, expressly exempts trade under CEMAC, CEEAC and the African Continental Free Trade Area, as well as the economic partnership agreements with the European Union and the United Kingdom [S137].

Cameroon signed the African Continental Free Trade Area agreement on 21 March 2018, ratified it on 31 January 2020 and deposited its instrument on 1 December 2020; 50 ratifications had been deposited by 4 September 2026 [S138][S139]. The rules of origin for chapter 72 products and CEMAC’s tariff schedule for reinforcing bar under the agreement could not be verified for this paper [S140]. They matter. A billet melted in Cameroon from imported direct-reduced iron, or a section rolled from imported billets, may or may not qualify as originating, and that will decide whether such products enter neighbouring markets duty-free. In October 2026 the AfCFTA Secretary-General urged member states to move from negotiating rules, such as the recently concluded automotive rules of origin, to investment and jobs [S141].

6.7 Money and payments: the advantage of a common currency

CEMAC’s monetary arrangements shape regional steel trade in ways that are easy to overlook. Its members share the CFA franc, pegged to the euro at 655.957 FCFA per euro, and a central bank, the BEAC. Trade between Cameroon and its CEMAC neighbours is therefore settled without exchange risk or the need to buy foreign currency. Imports from outside the zone, by contrast, must be paid in dollars, euros or yuan, drawing on reserves that fell to 6,377.3 bn FCFA at the end of 2025, equivalent to 4.2 months of imports [S113]. Transfers abroad above 50m FCFA require authorisation by the central bank under the CEMAC foreign-exchange regulation, and Cameroon’s 2026 Finance Law prohibits purchases from foreign suppliers without an effective transfer of funds [S142][S136].

For a buyer in Chad, Gabon or Congo, a supplier in Cameroon therefore offers more than a shorter delivery time: it offers payment in the buyer’s own currency, without the delays and costs of foreign-exchange approval. For the zone as a whole, every tonne of steel supplied from within CEMAC rather than imported from outside saves foreign exchange, which is the binding constraint on the region’s external accounts. The BEAC raised its main policy rate to 4.75% in December 2025, which raises the cost of financing imported stocks [S113]. These conditions favour regional suppliers of the products that the zone imports in bulk, notably billets, sections and structures.

6.8 Logistics: Douala’s corridors and Kribi’s deep water

Douala remains the main gateway for Chad and the Central African Republic. Kribi, the deep-water port to the south, handled 12.7 Mt of traffic in 2025, 19% more than in 2024, including 555,398 twenty-foot equivalent units, and claims 37.5% of national container traffic [S99]. Its container terminal is under strain: container traffic rose 82.4% in the year after the second terminal opened and import dwell time reached 25.28 days in 2026 [S143][S100]. No railway reaches Kribi yet; a memorandum on an Edéa-Kribi-Lolabé-Campo line of about 185 km was signed on 4 June 2026 [S88]. For regional distribution of steel, road links to Edéa and Douala, the multipurpose terminal and the mineral terminal at Kribi, the subject of a memorandum of understanding of 4 November 2025 with completion targeted within five to six years of March 2026, will matter more than the container terminal [S89][S91].

6.9 Sizing the regional opportunity

Because tonnage data are incomplete, the regional market can only be sized indicatively. The five CEMAC members other than Cameroon imported about US$191m of chapter 72 steel in 2023 (derived) [S06]. At an average delivered value of US$700 to 900 per tonne, an assumption bracketing international rebar export prices of US$545 to 630 per tonne plus freight, duties and product mix (Chapter 8), that corresponds to roughly 210 to 270 kt a year (derived; assumption in Annex A). Chapter 7 projects this envelope to 2040 under the same scenarios used for Cameroon.

Three features of this market shape the opportunity. It is dominated by finished products, so its value to a Cameroonian producer depends on what that producer makes. It is dispersed across five countries with different logistics, from Gabon’s coast to landlocked Chad. And it is contested: Gabonese mills, North African exporters and Asian surplus all compete for it. The most defensible regional positions are therefore in products where Cameroon’s neighbours have no production at all, such as heavy sections, structures and merchant billets for the new mills being built in Gabon, and in markets such as Chad where Cameroon already has a logistics advantage.