This paper titled”The Role of Timber Trade in Economic Growth and Development: The Case of Cameroon 1990-2015”, investigates the role of timber trade to the economic development Cameroon from 1990-2015.
Using the Cobb Douglas Production model and the Heckscher-Ohlin model, corroborated with regression analysis this work investigates the relationship between Gross capital formation, total labour force, foreign earnings, import of goods and services and trade openness.
Timber is one of the main export commodities of Cameroon and being an agricultural product, revenue generated from its export has fluctuated within this period of study because of external market volatilities. This morose situation has been exacerbated be the fact that most of the timber is exported in without any significant transformation to add value.
This study has revealed that gross capital formation, and labour force have the potential to positively influence growth in output of timber and thus generate wealth, but this potential is eroded by lower earnings generated from the timber sector, and thus timber trade has an insignificant contributed to the economic growth and development of Cameroon with the period of study. The Cameroonian authorities have been called upon to implements policies that will induce investment in the timber sector and to also diversify the economy by developing the tertiary sector to mitigate volatilities in the prices of export of natural resources, such as timber.