Morocco airline and African Bank plan to establish air CEMAC

The African Development Bank (ADB) and the Moroccan airline, Royal Air Maroc (RAM), are planning to establish an airline dubbed Air CEMAC within the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC), Dakar-based Pan-African news agency "PANA" reported on Friday.

Quoting well-informed sources following a closed-door meeting in Libreville (Gabon) of Ministers of the sub-region, PANA said RAM's interest in this "project of sub-regional integration was raised following contacts between this company and the chairman of the African Development Bank, Omar Kabbaj (Morocco), upon a request from the heads of state of the sub-region."

The Moroccan carrier is already present in Africa, namely in Senegal where it holds 51 percent of the capital of the Senegalese airline "Air Senegal International."

The project for the creation of Air CEMAC was initiated in 2001 in Yaounde (Cameroon) and will cost 15 Billion F CFA (around Euro 23 million), with 70 percent of this amount to be financed by the private sector and the remaining 30 percent by CEMAC member states.

Feasibility studies have shown that this company could carry ever year 720,000 passengers for long distance flights and 830,000 passengers in the region with the main markets Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo.