China, Cameroon sign 4 cooperation agreements

Cameroon and China on Monday signed four cooperation agreements in the domains of water, air transport and telecommunication.

In the first agreement worth 173 million US dollars, China promised to fund water projects in four Cameroonian towns of Bafoussam, Bamenda, Kribi and Sangmelima.

The second agreement worth about 158 million dollars will provide partial funding to an emergency national telecommunications network in Cameroon.

Cameroon also received 16 million dollars for funding economic and technical cooperation projects and another 80 million dollars to purchase two MA60 aircraft from China.

Chinese Ambassador to Cameroon Wo Ruidi hailed the signing of the agreements and said this would reinforce the 40-year bilateral relations between Beijing and Yaounde.

Cameroon's Transport Minister Robert Nkili recalled the agreements were concluded during President Paul Biya's visit to China in July 2011.

Through another agreement, a third MA60 was received by Cameroon in November 2012 and the transport minister said it was already serving Cameroon and its neighboring states.

"It is the same small plane that carried seven French hostages who were released in March 2013 after having been kept in captivity for over a month by Nigerian kidnappers," Nkili recalled.

Cameroon's Economy Minister Emmanuel Nganou Djoumessi said the signing of agreements in the water sector will enable the government to achieve its objective of increasing the rate of access to water in the capital from the current 25 percent to 75 percent by the year 2020.

The economy minister expressed confidence that the national telecommunications project will improve the country's disaster prevention and management system.

"It will boost the early warning system for better protection of the population and their properties," he said, adding that "the telecommunications system will also coordinate rescue operations at the local and national level."

He revealed that there were ongoing talks between the Cameroonian and Chinese authorities for the construction of a high- speed standard gauge railway in Yaounde to end the perennial traffic jams.