(Business in Cameroon) - The good performance achieved by banana producers in Cameroon over the first quarter this year, especially with a 4.8% YoY increase in exports, should continue during the second quarter.

“Banana production is expected to increase in the second quarter of 2022, benefiting mainly from the maturation of plantations in 2021, and to a lesser extent, the resumption of activities in some plantations of the CDC that stopped working last year due to the Anglophone crisis,” Beac said in its latest business survey.

The optimistic forecasts announced for the banana sector in Cameroon between April and June 2022 are primarily based on the performance of the Cameroon Development Corporation (CDC), the country's second-largest employer after the public administration. This agribusiness unit, 100% owned by the state, has been facing great difficulties since the outbreak of the separatist crisis. Most of CDC’s plantations are located in the Southwest.

To get back in the market, after almost two years of suspension due to crisis, the CDC has undertaken, in 2021, the rehabilitation of 520 hectares of banana plantations. These plantations are expected to reach maturity in Q2 2022, according to the forecasting test of the central bank.

With the lull now observed in the Anglophone regions thanks to security operations carried out by the Cameroonian defense forces, the CDC should be able to regain control of its plantations located in those regions. 

Brice R. Mbodiam