(Business in Cameroon) - On November 9, Luc Magloire Mbarga Atangana, Cameroon’s minister of commerce inaugurated two post-harvest cocoa processing centers of excellence in Mintaba and Si-Manyaï, communities that are located in Bot Makak cocoa production basin.   

A similar infrastructure was inaugurated two days earlier in Nkog-Ekogo, a small village in Lékié, the country’s leading production basin which produces 40% of its total output. These infrastructures, which comprise beans’ fermentation tanks, modern drying ovens, and tray for sun-drying, will be multiplied across the Country’s production basins.

The minister of commerce said that with these three first centers, “the cocoa sector enters a new era marked by excellence, in terms of quality”. “When I come to the production basins, I am called his Excellency Mr. Minister; give me that opportunity to call you excellences Mr producers by producing cocoa of excellent quality”, he said to the producers.

It should be noted that the post-harvest cocoa processing centers of excellence are the concretization of a commitment made by Cameroon’s president, during the last presidential campaign, to minimize the impacts of the global fall in cocoa prices on farmers.

Brice R. Mbodiam