Chinese-Built Port Evokes Dreams of El Dorado in Cameroon – by Pauline Bax (Bloomberg News – August 29, 2018)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

A controversial $1.3 billion port in Cameroon will open the region’s iron ore, cotton and other commodities to world markets.

Every day at sunrise, Alain Eko walks half an hour on a footpath cutting through a coastal forest to the edge of what’s to become the biggest deep-water port in central Africa.

Eko, 34, is among hundreds of migrant workers who have pinned their hopes on Cameroon’s most ambitious project since independence in 1960 that’s meant to transform the sleepy fishing town of Kribi into an industrial hub.

Built and funded by China, the project is helping Chinese companies gain a foothold in Cameroon, whose oil-dependent economy used to be dominated by French firms, and eased access to neighboring Chad and Central African Republic.

A university graduate, Eko has offloaded trucks, wedged bricks into hill slopes and shoveled dirt since he moved to southwestern Cameroon to work as a day laborer with contractors for the company building the port, China Harbour Engineering Co., locally known as CHEC. He hopes that one day he’ll earn enough to bring his wife and child from the interior.

“It’s an El Dorado for Cameroon,” Eko said as he stood on a beach and pointed at cranes towering on the horizon. “This is the future.”

It’s a rare bit of good news for Cameroon’s government, which is facing insurgencies, widespread discontent with President Paul Biya’s 35-year grip on power and a steep drop in oil income. Amid uncertainty over 85-year-old Biya’s health and a rebellion in the two Anglophone regions of the mainly French-speaking nation, the official opening of the port’s first container and multi-purpose terminals in March was a bright spot.

For the rest of this article: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-08-29/china-stakes-its-claim-on-west-africa?srnd=premium