"The time for action is now," Biya, one of Africa's longest serving leaders, said as he took the oath at a ceremony notable for the absence of his main political rival in the October vote and any foreign heads of state.
The 78-year-old pledged to turn around the country's feeble economy by bringing on major projects and said he wanted to "perfect" the electoral system.
"There can be no doubt that those who exercise power in Cameroon take their legitimacy from the Cameroonian people," said Biya, sworn in for another seven year term at the ceremony at the national assembly in Yaounde.
Nicknamed "the Sphinx", Biya was declared the winner of the October 9 presidential election with 78 percent of the vote. Veteran opposition leader John Fru Ndi came second with nearly 11 percent.
But Fru Ndi and six other opposition candidates rejected the results, claiming the electoral system had been rigged in favour of Biya, who has been in power since 1982 in what is regarded as one of the most corrupt nations on the planet.
Fru Ndi's Social Democratic Front, Cameroon's main opposition party, had charged that "dead people" voted in the ballot.
"Only irrational minds can dare to pretend that there was a real election in Cameroon," the front said just two days after the highest court validated the poll and issued official results.
US ambassador to Cameroon Robert Jackson last week criticised the running of the election, alleging irregularities at every level, and former colonial power France also cited "irregularities".
Cameroon is in dire straits, with a third of the 20 million population having no access to drinking water and electricity and one person in every four living on less than 1.1 euros a day.
Despite its mineral wealth, the country's growth rate of 3.2 percent in 2010 is the lowest in the region.
Biya promised in his speech to change the situation, saying the economic crisis had put the brakes on growth just as Cameroon was ready to launch major agricultural, mining, energy and infrastructure projects.
"Despite the global gloom... most of our projects will soon take shape and radically transform our country's economy," he said, also pledging to embark on an "agricultural revolution" that would provide food security and boost exports.
The reclusive president spends much of his time outside Cameroon and was largely absent from public view throughout the election campaign. Africa's fourth-longest ruler spends much of his time in Switzerland, where two of his sons attend school.
Last year, Paris prosecutors opened a probe into claims that Biya had stashed public resources in French accounts.
He won elections in 1992, 1997 and 2004, which many expected to be his final bid in keeping with a cap on presidential term limits agreed to in 1996.
But in 2008, Cameroon's national assembly, packed with Biya loyalists, scrapped term limits -- provoking riots that left at least 139 people dead, according to rights groups.
Biya's backers insist the president is a unifying figure in an ethnically diverse country where there are at least 10 active separatist movements.
Reacting to opposition threats to demonstrate against the vote results, Biya's ruling Cameroon People's Democratic Movement last month accused the opposition of issuing "unacceptable and unjustifiable calls for disorder and violence."
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