(Business in Cameroon) - Out of the 253,510 tons of cocoa officially marketed in Cameroon during the 2017-2018 campaign which has just been, 53,494 tons were processed locally. 53,403 tons had been processed by industrials and 91 tons by small-scale processors.  

Compared to the 33,023 tons processed during the 2016-2017 campaign, this represents a rise by 20,000 tons. Despite this, it is worth noting that Cameroon processed only 25% of its production while the cocoa sector’s recovery plan expects the country to be able to process 50% of its production by 2020 and produce 600,000 tons annually. According to various actors in the sector, these targets couldn’t be met.

This is evidenced by the statement of Luc Magloire Mbarga Atangana, the trade minister on August 8, 2018, while launching the sixth edition of Festival international du cacao camerounais (FESTICACAO). Indeed, the minister expects the country’s processing capacity to be between 130,000 and 150,000 tons in the coming three years, far from the 300,000 tons forecasted in the recovery plan.

Let’s note that this processing capacity will become effective during the 2018-2019 (officially launched on August 7, 2018) with the commissioning of a new processing plant in the industrial zone of Kribi deepwater port in the South by Atlantic Cocoa.  

The first processing units to be built in the port, these plants are part of a CFA50 billion agribusiness project lead by the Ivorian economic operator Koné Dossongui and, they will be commissioned by the end of this year according to authorized sources. The plants will have a yearly processing capacity of 48,000 tons extensible to 64,000 tons, Georges Wilson, managing director of Atlantic Cocoa revealed.

Brice R. Mbodiam