(Business in Cameroon) - Cocoa traders and exporters initiated measures to relocate their employees, amid separatists’ violent demands in Cameroon’s south-west region. According to Channel NewsAsia which relayed Reuters, major exporters who operate in the region decided to either move their staff to the region’s quieter localities or simply move them from the region.

The move is to flee violence between Anglophone separatists and security forces which already affected the previous season which ended mid-July. Olam and Telcar Cocoa, the local trader of U.S. Cargill, also adopted this strategy. Both companies accounted for 47.7% of volumes exported during the 2017-18 campaign, with 27% for Telcar Cocoa, and 20.7% for Olam. The latter has already completely moved its staff from the South-west region (localities of Mamfé and Kumba), to Douala, the economic capital. The Dutch firm Theobroma also moved their staff from Mamfé to near Kumba from where the beans are channeled to neighboring Nigeria.

Due to these relocation plans, the 2018-2019 cocoa season is forecasted to be a little gloomier in the South-West region, which alone accounted for 47% of national output in 2016-17, according to the National Cocoa and Coffee Board (ONCC). However, the region’s output dropped by 32% in 2017-18 when the separatist violence began, causing farmers to abandon plantations.

Let’s note that exporters and traders had to pay separatists to avoid destruction of their facilities or kidnapping of their employees.

Brice R. Mbodiam