Cameroon seeks Eurobon too fund road, rail projects

President Biya

Cameroon, Nigerian eastern neighbour  is preparing to issue a Eurobond to help fund new road, rail and power projects that it hopes will spur double-digit economic growth in the next five years, finance minister Alamine Ousmane Mey told Reuters.
The central African country hopes to cash in on the intense appetite among international investors for higher-interest debt, Ousmane Mey said in an interview on Wednesday.
"When you look at the infrastructure needs, we are looking at a diversification of our funding sources," he said at an investment conference.
"Issuing is on the agenda in Cameroon, we have been doing it locally and in the near future we will be doing it on the international markets."
He wouldn't say how much the government would look to raise but said it was likely to tap markets in the next few months once its plans, including a new north-to-south road and projects to tap its oil and mineral reserves, were finalised.
"We need to dedicate these resources to well-prepared projects ... And if the time is right then we will be doing it, and it will be in the very near future."
Despite Cameroon's location, between the conflict-ridden Central Africa Republic and Nigeria with its Islamist tensions, Ousmane Mey said the improving global outlook meant growth in Cameroon was starting to pick up again having slowed last year.
Cameroon is an oil producer in the Gulf of Guinea and the world's fifth largest cocoa producer. It also acts as the Central African region's bread basket, supplying food to Chad, Congo Republic, Gabon and Central African Republic.
"The prospect for growth is to reach at least 6 percent in 2014, that is what we expect," he said, adding: "With oil production going up, we can aim at two-digit (percentage) growth rates ... within five years."