Societe Generale Increases Credit Line To COVID-19 Affected Cameroon Businesses To $70 Million

The Cameroonian affiliate of the French bank, Societe Generale, has increased its credit line for local businesses negatively affected by the COVID-19 pandemic to 35 billion FCFA (about $70 million).

An accord to this effect was signed on Monday, December 14, between the Cameroonian Government represented by the Minister of Finance, Louis Paul Motaze, and Societe Generale’s Director-General for Cameroon, Mareme Mbaye Ndiaye.

“Thanks to this credit line, Cameroonian small and medium size enterprises of the sectors of industrial manufacturing, trade, agriculture, hotels, tourism and transport would be able to benefit from Societe Generale Cameroon’s important support by way of operating funds granted at very favourable terms in order to accelerate their investment projects, protect employment and facilitate the relaunching of the economy, ” Ndiaye said at the signing ceremony.

Concerning criteria for eligibility, the director-general called on the various enterprises to call at the bank because the study of the credit dossiers would be done on a case by case basis.

He advised the business people wishing to benefit from the credit to first of all be customers of the banks and show proof of their financial output and that their enterprises had been negatively affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

On his part, the minister said the state had given its caution to the operation in line with the government’s policy to support small and medium size enterprises which constituted an important aspect of Cameroon’s economy since the arrival of the coronavirus in Cameroon in March this year.

This new Societe Generale Cameroon financial package brings the total amount the bank is setting aside for assistance to COVID-19 affected businesses to 35 billion FCFA and comes one month after the signing of a credit convention of 10 billion FCFA (about $20 million) between the European Investment Bank and Societe Generale for the benefit of Cameroonian small and medium size enterprises.

“That demonstrates once more, the engagement of Societe Generale Cameroon and more globally that of the Societe Generale Group through its Grow With Africa programme, to make the financing of the Cameroonian entrepreneurial ecosystem one of the major axis of its strategic development”,  Ndiaye said.