Cameroon has a high potential of mineral resources with over 52 types of mineral substances:
- Precious stones (gold, diamond, sapphire, platinum, graphite, etc.).
- Energy-related substances (petroleum, natural gas, lignite, schist bitumen, uranium, etc.).
- Metallic substances (titanium, bauxite, cobalt, nickel, iron, chromium, magnesium, lead, zinc, tungsten, etc.).
- building materials related substance , marble.
Mineral resources with important reserves: crude oil, natural gas, titane oxyd, bauxite, uranium and iron ore.
Cameroon’s proven gas reserves are estimated at 3.9trn cu ft.
Although the mining sector has been for a long time the engine of the economy prior to the crisis of the mid-eighties, other mineral deposits are yet to be explored, such as bauxite (1,200 million tones), iron ore (300 million tones), rutile (3 million tones), tin, limestone, uranium, and diamonds
Rich and promising subsoil :
Cameroon’s mining resources are still exploited using makeshift methods, whereas the country’s subsoil is replete with minerals such as gold, bauxite, cobalt, iron, etc.
The Government has a medium-term plan to develop the mining sector. Measures to that end have been initiated, an example of which is the law to lay down the Mining Code, which was enacted in April 2001, thus repealing the 1964 law which had become inconsistent with the country’s economic realities.
This Code seeks to develop Cameroon’s crude mineral products to make earnings which compensate for the declining oil production. The mining Code seeks to incite investors by granting them, during the mine construction phase, exemption from taxes and duties on materials, inputs and equipment required for production purposes. Simultaneously, it seeks to safeguard the interests of the 10,000 or so artisan miners in the sector by making provision for them to be registered and to set up micro-enterprises.