This increase is explained by the upward performance of the three main players in the market. Starting with the number one player in the sector, Plantations du Haut Penja PHP, a local subsidiary of the Compagnie fruitière de Marseille, which shipped 13,623 tonnes of bananas in May 2022 compared to 9,888 tonnes in the same period last year, an increase of 27.41% year-on-year.

The second exporter, the state-owned agro-industrial Cameroon Development Corporation (CDC), located in south-western Cameroon, exported 1,805 tonnes of bananas during May 2022, compared to 1,121 tonnes in May 2021, an annual increase of 37.8%. Boh Plantations Plc (BPL), the country’s third largest producer, exported 1,077 tonnes of bananas in May 2022 compared to 898 tonnes in May 2021, an increase of 16.6%.

This upward performance is not a surprise in view of the economic forecast test published last April by the Bank of Central African States Beac, the issuing bank of the six CEMAC countries (Cameroon, Congo, Gabon, Chad, CAR and Equatorial Guinea).

“Banana production should increase in the second quarter of 2022, benefiting above all from the maturation of the 2021 plantations and, to a lesser extent, from the resumption of activities in certain CDC plantations that were facing insecurity last year,” the central bank’s survey report said.