Cameroon’s public debt stood at 44.2% of GDP at the end of June.
All external debt payments were made on time, with no arrears recorded.
The bigger pressure comes from costlier financing and a rising debt-service burden.
A Bloomberg report on the performance of Cameroon’s dollar bonds has, within a week, turned into a broader debate over the country’s solvency in several local media outlets. President Paul Biya’s prolonged absence from the country has been cited as the reason. Yet public debt accounts published by the Autonomous Sinking Fund (CAA) present a more consistent and, above all, more nuanced picture, three months before a planned $690 million financing operation.
On August 7, Bloomberg reported that Cameroon’s dollar-denominated bonds had delivered the worst performance among African sovereign issuers since mid-June, with holders losing about 2%. The news agency placed that performance alongside Biya’s absence. The president left Yaoundé on June 7 for a private stay in Europe and has not returned since.
Within days, coverage in Cameroon shifted the focus. What began as a measure of bond performance over eight weeks became, in several reports and comments from locally consulted experts, numerical evidence that the country was losing creditors’ confidence because its president was outside the country. The shift is understandable: it gives the political debate an argument that appears objective, external and difficult to dispute.
The figures underpinning the current debate, however, provide only part of the picture, even though more comprehensive data are publicly available. The CAA, the state agency responsible for managing Cameroon’s debt accounts, published its economic report covering the period through June 30, 2026, on July 27. It presents a picture that neither the original article nor subsequent coverage fully reflects and provides additional context.
An Absence the Law Does Not Limit
The debate over the president’s stay abroad is legitimate, but it rests on a distinction that has become blurred. No Cameroonian law sets a maximum duration for presidential travel abroad. Article 6 of the Constitution provides for a vacancy in the presidency in only three circumstances: death, resignation or permanent incapacity established by the Constitutional Council. The 45-day rule circulating on social media does not appear in any legal instrument.
That does not make the situation comfortable. The government promised for December 2025 has not been formed, the office of vice president created by the April 2026 constitutional reform remains vacant, and the communications minister said on RFI on August 2 only that Biya would return soon, without providing a date.
But political uncertainty is one issue; the state’s ability to meet its financial obligations is another. The domestic debate has merged the two.
What Bloomberg Measured — and What It Covers
The scope of Bloomberg’s measure matters because it has received little attention in subsequent coverage.
Cameroon currently has two international dollar-denominated loans outstanding. The first, worth $550 million and due in 2031, was completed on July 31, 2024, at an annual interest rate of 9.5%. The second, worth $750 million and due in 2033, was signed on January 30, 2026, at 8.875%.
Both were privately placed with a small group of investors rather than offered through a public issuance. The country’s third international borrowing, often incorrectly placed in the same category, is denominated in euros: €685 million due in 2032.
The CAA classifies these instruments within external commercial debt, which totaled CFA1.51 trillion at the end of June 2026. Within that category, the 2015 and 2021 Eurobonds account for 29.8%, equivalent to 4.8% of total external debt. Private placements conducted through the London Stock Exchange in February 2026 represent another 29.7%, or 4.7% of external debt.
In other words, Cameroon’s international securities together represent less than one-tenth of its external debt.
The currency composition tells a similar story. The euro accounts for 31.3% of total public debt, the CFA franc for 31.2% and the dollar for 18.5%. Because the CFA franc is pegged to the euro, nearly two-thirds of Cameroon’s debt is denominated either in its own currency or its anchor currency.
The segment captured by Bloomberg’s performance measure therefore does not determine Cameroon’s overall borrowing cost.
What the June 30 Accounts Show
The CAA’s latest report provides details largely absent from the debate over Cameroon’s creditworthiness.
First, all external debt payments due through the end of June were made within contractual deadlines, with no arrears recorded. During the first six months of 2026, the government paid CFA444.5 billion in external debt service, equivalent to 85% of the amount projected under the Finance Law for the period.
Market prices can signal changing investor perceptions, but payment performance provides a separate measure of a sovereign borrower’s capacity to meet its obligations. On that measure, Cameroon had no arrears at the end of June.
Public debt stood at CFA15.61 trillion on June 30, equivalent to 44.2% of GDP. That remains below the 50% ceiling Cameroon set under its 2026-2028 debt strategy and well below the 70% convergence threshold for the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC).
Another rarely highlighted indicator is Cameroon’s average borrowing cost. The weighted average interest rate on the debt portfolio stood at 2.8% at the end of June 2026: 2.5% for external debt and 3.4% for domestic debt. The overall rate was 3% a year earlier and 3.1% in September 2025.
Cameroon borrowed at considerably higher rates on international markets in January, yet the average cost of its overall debt still declined. That reflects the relatively limited weight of international securities within the broader portfolio.
Cameroon’s debt sustainability analysis continues to classify its debt as sustainable but at high risk of external debt distress, a longstanding assessment. Since late 2025, however, the country has been classified as having medium debt-carrying capacity, up from weak capacity previously. The report notes that the reclassification gives Cameroon greater room for maneuver, another development largely absent from coverage in August.
The economic environment in CEMAC, where Cameroon is the largest economy, has also improved. At its second meeting of 2026, the Bank of Central African States (BEAC) raised its regional growth forecast to 3.2% from 2.9%, projected the budget deficit at 1.9% of GDP and revised the current-account deficit to 2.9% from 5.2%.
BEAC also cut its main policy rate to 4.5% from 4.75% and lowered banks’ reserve requirements. In Cameroon, 12-month average inflation fell to 2.6% in June 2026 from 4.1% a year earlier, below CEMAC’s 3% threshold.
The Real Weakness Lies Elsewhere
None of this means Cameroon’s debt position is comfortable. It is not. But the more significant vulnerabilities lie elsewhere than the president’s physical absence from the country.
The quality of new borrowing has deteriorated. Of CFA514 billion in new loans signed during the first half of the year, 87% came at market terms, without the preferential conditions typically offered by public lenders. In June, 99.8% of project-loan disbursements were non-concessional.
Across the first half, commercial creditors accounted for 63% of external disbursements, compared with just 34.1% from multilateral lenders. Cameroon has not lost access to financing; its access to cheaper financing has weakened. That poses a more structural challenge than an eight-week decline in bond prices.
Debt service is also taking a larger toll. The government paid CFA1.06 trillion on its debt between January and June 2026, compared with CFA631.3 billion over the same period in 2025. Principal repayments accounted for 85.8% of the 2026 total.
The debt sustainability analysis also shows a persistent breach of the ratio of external debt service to export revenue, along with a temporary breach of the debt-service-to-government-revenue threshold. That is where the pressure becomes more pronounced.
Some liabilities have yet to enter the debt figures. Debt owed by the Cameroon Electricity Corporation, estimated at about CFA800 billion, remains under assessment and is not included. Municipal debt owed to FEICOM, totaling CFA121.2 billion for 2020-2025, is also excluded.
Off-balance-sheet commitments linked to public-private partnerships stand at CFA4.90 trillion, equivalent to 13.9% of GDP, and do not include either the Kribi refinery or the planned 300 MW power plant at the Port of Douala.
Outstanding payment obligations have risen 27.7% from a year earlier to CFA703.5 billion. Average debt maturities are shortening as well. The portfolio’s average time to maturity fell to 6.9 years at the end of June 2026 from 7.5 years a year earlier. The country therefore has less time, on average, before its obligations fall due.
The Real Test Is Cameroon’s Next Financing
These pressures matter because another financing operation is approaching.
The CAA report says the government plans to secure a $690 million ESG-linked loan, equivalent to about CFA400 billion, in addition to the CFA474 billion already raised externally during the first quarter. Several international financial institutions would support the transaction through guarantees and risk-sharing mechanisms, including the African Development Bank, ATIDI and Africa Finance Corporation.
The document provides no maturity, grace period or interest rate. Claims circulating about a 15-year maturity and a five-year grace period do not appear in the report.
What the document does explain is the operation’s place in Cameroon’s broader financing needs. The 2026 Finance Law puts the country’s total financing requirement at CFA3.20 trillion, equivalent to 8.8% of GDP, with external resources expected to cover about two-thirds. The planned loan would cover roughly one-eighth of that requirement.
This is where perceptions of sovereign risk become financially consequential. Partial guarantees and risk-sharing arrangements depend on assessments of sovereign risk. Those assessments can incorporate governance, political uncertainty and the fiscal trajectory alongside other economic and financial indicators.
Two developments will provide a clearer test of Cameroon’s financing position: whether the ESG loan closes before year-end and at what cost, and whether the country signs a new program with the International Monetary Fund.
Cameroon’s previous IMF program ended in July 2025. Fitch, which affirmed the country’s B rating with a negative outlook on April 24, said the absence of a new agreement would pose a risk to the government’s financing plan.
Those outcomes will provide a broader measure of Cameroon’s access to financing than eight weeks of trading in its dollar-denominated bonds.
Idriss Linge