BOP-GEP 2022-2023 Note

Cameroon’s external accounts record the transactions the transactions of its residents with foreign residents and track changes in their external assets and liabilities. They summaries the economic relations between the country’s residents and non-residents. These accounts are Balance of Payments (BOP) and the Global External Position (GEP).

The BOP records transactions in goods, services and real financial and monetary assets between residents of the country and foreign foreign residents over a given period.

The GEP is a summary statement of a country’s stock of external financial assets and liabilities of a country at a given time. It is the difference between the country’s external financial assets and liabilities.

With regard to the balance of payments, the provisional results for 2023 show a widening of the current account deficit to 4% of GDP, compared with 3.4% of GDP in 2022. The overall balance deteriorated from a surplus of 1.8% of GDP in 2022 to a deficit of 1.1% of GDP in 2023. In the first quarter of 2024, compared with the fourth quarter of 2023, the provisional results show a worsening of the current account deficit to 367.3 billion from 228.6 billion. All transactions in the first quarter of 2024 resulted in an overall surplus of 19.8 billion, down from 129.2 billion in the fourth quarter of 2023.

The Global External Position is negative, reaching -10,678.1 billion (36.5% of GDP) in 2023, after -9,432.2 billion (29.6% of GDP) in 2022. This position reflects a stock of assets with the rest of the world that is lower than the stock of liabilities.