The inauguration of a new factory in Tiko, South West Region, marks the beginning of car tyre manufacturing. Rubber will come from the Cameroon Development Corporation (CDC) as the main raw material.
On Thursday, October 24, Prof. Fuh Calistus Gentry, the Minister of Mines, Industry, and Technological Development, inaugurated the factory near the Tiko tollgate. He achieved this during his five-day visit to the Littoral and South West Regions.
The factory will start operating in 2025.
Fuh Calistus said the government is driving towards making Tiko, a municipality hosting several estates of the CDC, an industrial hub in the coming years.
Apart from employing thousands of job-seeking youths, the tyre production plant in Tiko will boost local production and avert a prevailing balance of payment deficit.
Furthermore, according to the National Institute of Statistics (NIS), Cameroon imported 23,164 metric tonnes of new tyres in 2022, costing FCFA 32.6 billion.
Minister Fuh Calistus coached investors to consider opening more industries in Tiko and other parts of the country to advance development and reduce unemployment.
The factory in Tiko will not be the first that produces tyres in Cameroon.
Antoine Ndzengué, a businessman from Cameroon, launched Neptune Holding Company in an effort to produce the country’s first tires in 2023.
With an investment of FCFA 400 billion, Ndzengué planned to build a tyre factory at Bomono, near Douala, with a production capacity of 4.6 million tires a year, that is 4 million car tyres and 600,000 truck tyres.
