bananas

Cameroon exported some 237,942 tonnes of bananas in 2010, at a value of CFA Fr40.5bn (US$81m), according to the national institute of statistics in Yaoundé, Xinhua has reported.

Although this represents a decrease in volume compared with 2009, when 254,610 tonnes were exported, value-wise it is a significant increase from the CFA Fr33.5bn (US$81m) generated in 2009.

National production for 2010 has been estimated at around 300,000 tonnes, of which 170,000 tonnes comes from the Cameroon Development Corporation (CDC), the state-owned business based in the southwest of the country.

The CDC has announced that it is expanding its plantations in order to reach a production volume of 320,000 by 2013/14, which would give the country a capacity of some 500,000 tonnes a year by 2015.