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Prometal, the Cameroonian steel and metals group founded by Franco-Lebanese industrialist Hayssam El Jammal, has secured a €40 million ($45.3 million) revolving working-capital facility from the African Export-Import Bank.
Afreximbank announced the financing on Wednesday. The money will fund Prometal's day-to-day operations, including the purchase of raw materials and stock as the group expands output. The bank said the facility will help Prometal meet rising demand for steel and metal products in Cameroon.
"This facility is fully aligned with Afreximbank's commitment to accelerating industrialization so that the continent can derive maximum value from its natural resources," said George Elombi, Afreximbank's president and chairman. "By identifying and developing the capabilities of African industrial champions such as Prometal SA, the Bank strengthens Africa's local production capacity and creates national and regional value chains."
A year after ProAlu
The loan comes a year after El Jammal's group raised money for its biggest expansion yet. In September 2025, ProAlu, the group's aluminum-processing subsidiary, raised 54.4 billion CFA francs, or about $93.8 million, from four lenders. BGFI Bank provided 15.5 billion CFA francs, Société Générale Cameroun and the French development lender Proparco provided 15 billion each, and Afriland First Bank provided 8.9 billion.
That financing was for new aluminum and copper-processing capacity, with the aim of reducing Cameroon's reliance on imported metal products. The new Afreximbank facility serves a different purpose, funding the cash needs of the group's existing operations rather than building new plants.
ProAlu is part of a wider $150 million program El Jammal announced in September 2025 to build an integrated metals industry in Cameroon, which the group said would create 450 jobs.
From steel trader to industrial group
El Jammal, who was born in 1969, has lived and worked in Cameroon for more than two decades. He built Prometal from a steel trading business into one of Central Africa's largest industrial groups. Its first locally made steel products, reinforcing bars for construction, reached the Cameroonian market on April 10, 2010.
The group now operates through two main divisions. Prometal Acier handles steel and metallurgy, and NOVIA Industries, launched in 2018, refines palm oil and makes products from its by-products, including soap.
Prometal has invested more than 255 billion CFA francs in Cameroon and created about 2,750 jobs, according to Investir au Cameroun. It sells 68 steel products in Cameroon and the wider Central African region. Its plants are in the industrial zones of Bassa and Bonabéri in Douala, the country's commercial capital.
The group has supplied materials for several of Cameroon's largest infrastructure projects, including the Lom Pangar dam, the second bridge over the Wouri River in Douala, and the Olembé and Japoma stadiums built for the Africa Cup of Nations.
El Jammal has also looked beyond Cameroon. His plans have included a steel project in Gabon's Nkok special economic zone, valued at about 30 billion CFA francs.
Recognition from Yaoundé
Cameroon's government has repeatedly honored El Jammal for his role in its industrial policy, which aims to replace imports with locally made goods. In 2022, President Paul Biya made him an officer of the National Order of Valour, an honor presented by Mines and Industry Minister Gabriel Dodo Ndoke. He was later named Foreign Investment Champion at the Cameroon Investment Forum, and in June 2025 he won the Industrial Leadership Award at the Finance Week event organized by the business newspaper EcoMatin.
When he received the national honor, El Jammal described it as "an invitation to work harder and to do better every day," and credited the government's investment incentives and its push to replace imports with local production.
The Afreximbank facility gives Prometal more financial room as Cameroon's demand for steel keeps rising with spending on roads, housing and public works.
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