政策已要求本地转化，但尚未使其具备融资可行性

5.1 Four layers of policy now point the same way

Local beneficiation policy in Cameroon is not one instrument but four layers, built up over a decade (Figure 5.1).

Source: [C20], [P13], [O33], [Z69], [C21], [Z42], [X01], [Z39], [Z79], [P23], [P19], [O29], [Z80].

Strategy. The National Development Strategy 2020 to 2030 (SND30) names "mines, metallurgy and steel" among nine priority industrial sub-sectors and adopts the doctrine of accelerating import substitution while densifying exports [P13]. It targets manufacturing value added of 25% of GDP by 2030 [P13], against about 13.3% in 2025 on national-accounts data [C09]. The earlier Industrialisation Master Plan (PDI) aimed to raise industry from 13% to 24% of GDP by 2035, with particular emphasis on metallurgy and steel, and was being revised in late 2024 [P14][P15]. SND30 says little about ore beneficiation as such and cites iron among the projects of earlier decades that did not materialise [P13].

Law. The Mining Code, Law No. 2023/014 of 19 December 2023, replaced the 2016 Code [O52][O36]. Its article 40(4) requires every mining convention to set out how production will be made available for local transformation, at a minimum rate of 15% [Z42]. The Code also gives the State a free carried interest of 10% in industrial mines, with an option to take up to 25% more (art. 47), and sets production-sharing ranges of 2 to 15% for non-precious substances (art. 48) [Z42]. Its local-content provisions reserve 95% of non-skilled jobs for Cameroonians (art. 124), give priority to Cameroonian subcontractors (art. 125) and require skills and technology transfer (art. 126) [O36]. Implementing decrees followed in November 2024 [O36].

Contracts. The Code codifies a practice that already existed in conventions. The Kribi-Lobé convention of May 2022 reserves 15% of production for the local market [O33][O34]. The Mbalam convention, as described by Cameroon Mining Company, authorises CMC to mine the deposit "while locally transforming 15% of its production"; the same source presents Cameroon Steel as the future national steel hub of the programme, without saying that the convention names the company [O17]. The terms of the Bipindi-Grand Zambi investment agreement on local supply were not found in public sources [O37].

Institutions and incentives. On 10 December 2025 the Prime Minister set up a strategic committee on mines-metallurgy integration, chaired by Dr Tang Ahanda Barnabé, special adviser to the Prime Minister [Z79][Z80]. Its mandate includes a reliable iron-ore supply chain for local steelmakers, enforcement of the Mining Code’s local-processing requirements and protection of domestic industry [Z79][Z80]. Its review of the metals industry in April 2026 found domestic capacity in excess of local demand and began preparing steel exports under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) [Z79][Z80]. In parallel, Ordinance No. 2025/002 of 18 July 2025, ratified by Law No. 2025/015 of 17 December 2025, replaced the 2013 investment-incentives law [Z39][Z40][Z41]. New projects must meet at least two eligibility criteria, among them one direct job per 50 m FCFA invested and, for industrial projects, at least 50% of inputs drawn from national natural resources; projects in economic zones receive an operating phase extended to seven years; and investors must present a local-skills and technology-transfer programme and evidence of financing [Z39].

5.2 What the 15% rule settles, and what it leaves open

Article 40(4) settles the principle and the floor. It establishes that a share of every convention’s output must be available for local transformation and that the share cannot be lower than 15% [Z42]. For the projects now starting, the volumes are significant (Chapter 6): 15% of Mbalam’s planned road phase of up to 10 Mtpa is 1.5 Mtpa; 15% of its rail phase of 25 Mtpa is 3.75 Mtpa [O25]; 15% of Lobé’s planned concentrate output is 0.6 Mtpa at 4 Mtpa in 2028 and 1.2 Mtpa at 8 Mtpa in 2031 [O35].

What the rule does not settle, at least in the public texts, is how that ore reaches a local processor. Five questions remain open.

1. What counts as transformation? Crushing and screening, concentration, pelletising, direct reduction and steelmaking all transform ore, but they add very different value. If crushing counts, the obligation can be met at the mine gate without creating any iron.
2. What grade? Fifteen per cent of a direct-shipping ore stream at 62% Fe is not a feed for a direct-reduction plant (Chapter 2). The rule says nothing about whether the miner must supply a concentrate of a given grade or simply a share of what it produces.
3. At what price? A local buyer paying the full seaborne price gains only the freight saving; a buyer paying a regulated discount transfers value from the miner and, through royalties and the State’s equity, from the Treasury. The rule needs a reference price, most simply export parity, that is, the seaborne index adjusted for grade and less the freight and port costs the miner avoids.
4. When? If the local processor is not ready, does the obligation lapse, accumulate or convert into a payment? Without a timing rule, a miner may reasonably argue that no buyer exists.
5. Where and how? Delivery at the mine, at a rail siding or at the Kribi terminal implies different logistics costs and responsibilities.

The Guinea precedent described in Chapter 4 shows how such questions can be answered in a convention: a specific facility (a 2 Mtpa pellet plant or a 0.5 Mtpa steel mill), a deadline (a feasibility study within two years of first production) and a reviewing authority [N09].

5.3 Tariffs and trade rules do not yet reward ironmaking

Cameroon’s external tariff protects finished products more than inputs, but it does not distinguish between raw ore and semi-finished steel. Under the CEMAC common external tariff as applied in 2023, iron ore, direct-reduced iron, ferrous scrap and billets all carry a 10% duty, as do sections and hot-rolled coil; rebar carries 20%, galvanised sheet 30%, and wire rod only 5% [P24]. A billet melted in Cameroon competes against an imported billet that pays the same duty as the iron ore it might have been made from.

Source: World Bank WITS, Cameroon reported MFN tariffs by HS line, 2023 [P24]. The new CEEAC-CEMAC tariff applies from 1 January 2026; its steel-line rates were not published at the cut-off date [P23].

Several features of the trade regime create room for adjustment. Cameroon’s WTO bindings cover only 0.2% of non-agricultural tariff lines, so steel duties are effectively unbound and can legally be adjusted [P26]. A new CEEAC-CEMAC common external tariff applies from 1 January 2026, with bands reported as 0, 5, 10, 20 and 40%; its steel lines were not yet public at the cut-off date [P23]. The Finance Law for 2025 introduced a "national preference" under which imported goods that have locally made equivalents lose customs facilities, with exceptions for goods under the economic partnership agreements with the EU and UK, AfCFTA, CEMAC and CEEAC [P18].

Other instruments protect the step that least needs protection. The 2016 rebar import ban, still in force [C20][C21][C34], shields the most saturated product. Price homologation caps what local mills can charge for rebar [C44]. The environmental tax introduced in 2026, 5,000 FCFA per tonne of reinforcing bar (fer à béton), applies equally to local producers and importers [P19]. And Cameroon has no trade-remedy practice in steel, while 62 countries had adopted 207 measures against Chinese steel by October 2025 [G30] and neighbours such as Egypt protect billets explicitly [A07].

Regional rules matter for exports. Cameroon ratified the AfCFTA agreement on 31 January 2020 and deposited its instrument on 1 December 2020 [P27]. The rules of origin that will apply to chapter 72 products, for example whether a billet melted from imported DRI qualifies as Cameroonian, were not verified for this paper [P31]. The answer will decide whether a phased chain that begins on imported iron units can export into the continental market.

5.4 Energy policy is the missing layer

A steel chain that reaches back to direct reduction needs natural gas and firm power, and here the policy framework is thinnest.

Gas. In 2025 Cameroon produced 75.5 bcf of natural gas, about 98.5% of it from the Sanaga Sud field off Kribi; about 95% was sold as feed to the Hilli Episeyo floating liquefaction vessel [E04]. The vessel left Cameroon in July 2026 for a new charter in Argentina [E08][E09]. Gas sold in 2025 to the Kribi power plant cost about 1,830 FCFA per thousand cubic feet (Mscf), roughly US$3.2, and gas sold to an industrial buyer 3,135 FCFA/Mscf, roughly US$5.6 [E04]. A tax of 70 FCFA per cubic metre on natural gas has applied since 2023; whether it would apply to gas used as a reductant was not established [E11]. No allocation of gas to the Kribi industrial zone in a published master plan was found.

Power. No regulated tariff exists above 10 MW: large industrial users contract bilaterally at high voltage. The six legacy high-voltage customers paid an average of 18.4 FCFA/kWh in 2025, the published band for 9 to 10 MW implies about 44 FCFA/kWh in 2026, and the regulator’s cost-reflective average is 105.46 FCFA/kWh [E15][E17][E37]. Chapter 7 discusses supply at Kribi.

5.5 Fiscal room is limited, so incentives must be targeted

Cameroon’s fiscal position constrains what the State can offer. The IMF rates the country at high overall risk of debt distress [P32], noted fiscal slippage in 2025 [P09], and CEMAC foreign reserves fell to 4.2 months of imports at the end of 2025 [P07]. Open-ended tax exemptions will be scrutinised, and the State’s own resources are already committed to the 1,748 bn FCFA iron-ore programme [O29]. Cameroon’s suspension from the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative in February 2024, with a validation score of 53, adds a governance argument for transparent, rules-based beneficiation terms [O52].

This argues for instruments that cost the budget little: clear offtake rules, a tariff structure that rewards ironmaking, trade-remedy capacity, and long-term energy contracts, rather than large subsidies.

Table 5.1 Instruments relevant to local transformation of iron ore: status, gaps and possible complements

Source: Cameroon Steel analysis of the sources shown.

5.6 From obligation to bankable supply

The direction of policy is right and consistent with the experience of other producers (Chapter 4). The 15% floor gives local transformation a legal basis that few African ore producers have; the mines-metallurgy committee gives it an owner; the investment ordinance rewards the use of national resources. To become bankable, that is, to support a lender’s decision to finance a pellet plant or a DR module, the obligation must become a contract that specifies grade, price, volume, timing and delivery, backed by tariff and energy policies that make ironmaking competitive with imported billets. Chapter 10 sets out a short list of measures to that end.