On 28 September 2016, during a meeting with the Deputy Minister of External Relations (Minrex) in charge of relations with the Islamic world, Merzak Bedjaoui, Ambassador of Algeria in Cameroon, expressed his wish that the Cameroonian authorities work towards a high attendance from Cameroon to the Algerian-African Business Forum, we learned from sources inside Minrex.

This meeting, the first of its kind organised by Algeria, will take place from 3 to 5 December 2016 in Algiers, the Algerian capital. According to the Algerian authorities, this business forum is not only meant to present the investment opportunities available in Algeria, but to also further develop partnerships for the promotion of Algerian exports towards the African continent, particularly for sectors such as the food industry and medicines.

In this ambition of winning over the African market, we can recall that the Algerian pharmaceutical group Saidal has announced in May 2016, having signed with a partner whose name was not revealed, an agreement for the distribution of its products in 13 African countries, including Cameroon.

The same month, the Algerian ambassador in Cameroon had announced the upcoming opening of an Algerian-Cameroonian trading post in the city of Douala, the economic capital of the country. This last initiative, meant to strengthen the economic cooperation between the two countries, we learned, is the 3rd of its type in Africa, after the Dakar and Abidjan trading posts.