(Business in Cameroon) - Exports of raw rubber in Cameroon shrunk by 24% last year, statistics from the National Balance of Payments Technical Committee showed.

Whilst the committee gave no reason for this decline, experts attributed it to the difficult times facing Cameroon Development Corporation (CDC), the public agro-industry that operates thousands of hectares of rubber, palm and bananas in the southwest ; a region which has been plagued by separatist violence along with the northwest for two years.

According to a report by the employers’ association -Gicam, many plantations have become training camps for the separatists and CDC employers fled fearing violence ; a situation that caused production to stop at several sites.

“We need security to protect our employees and fields from repeated attacks from people who don’t want us to prosper,” MD Franklin Ngoni Njie said, stressing that the company needs about XAF7 billion to restart rubber production. CDC aims to become a rubber exporter along with Hevecam and SudCam Hevea.

Brice R. Mbodiam