(Business in Cameroon) - Cameroon exported 198,634 tons of bananas in 2021, according to data compiled by the Cameroon Banana Association (ASSOBACAM). The performance is up by 10,750 tons (+5.41%) compared with the 187,884 tons of banana the country exported in 2020.

This is mainly due to the achievement of Cameroon Development Corporation (CDC), the state-owned agribusiness firm that made its come back in the list of the country’s banana exporters in June 2020 after being forced by the separatist crisis in the Southwest to stop operations in September 2018. During the period under review, CDC exported 16,779 tons of banana, 10,611 tons more than the 6,168 tons it exported in 2020.

Plantations du Haut Penja (PHP), leader of the Cameroonian banana market and a subsidiary of French group Compagnie Fruitière de Marseille, exported 167,534 tons of the product in 2021, up by 772 tons compared with the 166,762 tons it exported in 2020.

As for Boh Plantations (BPL), the third main banana exporter in Cameroon, it exported 14,321 tons of banana in 2021, down by 633 tons compared with the 14,954 tons it exported in 2020.

Banana is one of ten non-oil products Cameroon exports to the European Union the most. But the country is yet to fulfill all of its ambitions for the sector. Indeed, to boost the revenues generated by its banana industry, Cameroon plans to increase its yearly production to 500,000 tons by 2030, according to the projections contained in the 2020-2030 national development strategy. This means that there are still about 301,366 tons in its production (supposing that all of the products have been exported this year) to fill within nine years or 33,485.11 tons on average yearly till 2030. 

Sylvain Andzongo