Digital trade regulatory integration : country profile Cameroon

Abstract

Towards the end of 2020, the Economic Commission for Africa launched an initiative on digital trade regulatory integration in Africa. The aim of the initiative was to collect information on the matter in order to: inform African Continental Free Trade Area negotiations on e-commerce; facilitate the introduction of a digital trade component in the Africa Regional Integration Index and improve the coverage of African countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development digital services trade restrictiveness index. It is against this background that the Commission selected a set of 20 regulatory measures grouped into five pillars focusing on digital trade integration that could inform the inclusion of a digital trade component in the Africa Regional Integration Index. Information on regulatory measures was collected from official documents to identify the degree of restrictiveness of the regulatory environment in Cameroon. The findings are summarized. Overall, 60 per cent of measures related to digital trade integration and 76 per cent of measures related to the digital services trade restrictiveness index fall under the category “absence of trade restriction”, while ‘total restriction’ only 15 per cent of measures related to digital trade integration and 24 per cent of measures related to the digital services trade restrictiveness index fall under the category “total restriction”.