The Rainforests of Cameroon - PROFOR

182 Appendix 10forest service (or to private firms acting on behalf of the forest service)to undertake survey inventories aiming at providing accurate public informationof the commercial potential of the resource to be auctioned. Inaddition, sufficient time must be allowed for potential bidders to maketheir own surveys.Floor price. Floor price matters, especially when competition is low ornonexistent. Experience has shown that when several bidders competefor a given concession, bids are well beyond the floor price. When no bidsat all are received for a given concession, it is worth considering holding anew round with a lower floor price (a practice not authorized by currentCameroonian regulations).Capture of economic rent. The auction system has been effective incapturing most of the economic forest rent, and both government andlocal council/community revenues (50 percent of the annual royalty)have increased. The structure of forest taxes has changed so that mostare concentrated upstream; this trend is consistent with the declineof log exports following progressive implementation of the partial logexport ban after 1999. Yet simply seeking to capture economic rent is notenough; this focus must be accompanied by tough policies to suppressthe numerous dysfunctions of the administration that bring additionalcosts to the economic agents (“administrative taxes and fees,” excessiverequirements put within the “cahiers des charges,” abusive financial cautions,excessive delays in refunding value added taxes for exporters, andso forth).Export levies. Export levies are easiest to collect and offer feweropportunities for fraud. They have a role to play even in regimes thatemphasize upstream taxation. They can be used to promote moreadvanced processing capacity and the use of less-marketed species overless- processed goods made from more traditional species. The challengeis to calibrate export levies at levels that do not discourage exports (if toohigh), play their incentive role effectively, and allow adequate revenuecapture by the state.Delivered by The World Bank e-library to:The World BankIP : 192.86.100.34Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:06:18(c) The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank