Cameroon military footwear factory reaches near completion

Cameroon’s military footwear factory, known as the Central Master Shoemaker Workshop, has reached 60 per cent completion, Defence Minister Joseph Beti Assomo announced during a recent inspection visit to the construction site. Located at the Joint Services Technical Training Centre (CFTA) in Ekounou, Yaounde, the facility is being built by Visa Longchamp SARL to produce shoes, boots, and other footwear for the nation’s defence and security forces.

Project manager Elie Martial Chokouaha stated that construction works are expected to be completed within five months, noting that structural works currently stand at the 60 percent mark.

The factory is being built on a site of approximately 1,730 square metres within the CFTA complex, situated near a military tailoring factory commissioned under an earlier phase of the country's defence industrial development programme. The overall structure will feature a production building covering approximately 4,850 square metres, including a 54-square-metre entrance hall, a 34-square-metre showroom, office space, changing rooms, storage units, and a dedicated production section. According to project managers, the structure will be roofed with galvanised steel sheets, while administrative areas will be tiled and external spaces paved with drainage infrastructure.

Minister Assomo was accompanied on the site tour by the Secretary of State in charge of the National Gendarmerie, alongside senior military officers and defence officials, who received progress reports on the architectural design from project architects and technical managers.

Once operational, the workshop will serve as a central production unit supplying footwear to Cameroon’s defence and security services. Officials said the facility is intended to strengthen the reliability of military supply chains and logisitical autonomy for national security operations.

The initiative follows the commissioning of a military uniform production factory and is part of a broader defence industrial development programme that includes future plans for an ammunition factory and an armoured vehicle assembly unit to support local technical expertise and industrial activity.