(Business in Cameroon) - In September and October this year, Cameroon exported 29,747 tons of banana, statistics from the fruit operators’ association (Assobacam) showed. This volume is down 13,394 tons from the 43,141 tons exported the same period in 2017.

The proportion of this decline roughly equates to the quantities exported during the same period in 2017 by the Cameroon Development Corporation CDC (14,442 tons), a state-owned agro-industrial unit, which had zero exports in September and October 2018, according to Assobacam.

Indeed, for the past year, CDC, the second largest employer in Cameroon (with 22,000 employees), after the public administration, witnessed a decline in activities due to exactions by the Anglophone separatists who struggle for the country’s division.

In recent months, we learnt, secessionists have increased abuses on the company’s plantations, attacking employees. This led CDC which operates thousands of hectares of banana plantations in the Southwest region, to shut down at least 12 out of 29 production sites. At the same time, according to a report by Gicam, the country's main employers' organization, 10 other sites are running at a slower pace due to sporadic incursions by secessionists.

In September and October 2018, bananas were exclusively exported by Société des plantations du Haut Penja (PHP) and Boh Plantations, the minor player of Cameroon’s banana market.

In detail, PHP, local subsidiary of Marseille fruit company and the leader in the banana market in Cameroon, shipped 27,688 tons during the period under review, up 537 tons compared to the same period in 2017. Boh Plantations, on the other hand, exported 2,059 tons, 511 tons higher than the same period last year.

Brice R. Mbodiam