Smuggling decreases Cameroun cocoa export
Shady operators
smuggled about 10,000 tonnes of cocoa out of Cameroun during the
2009/10 season, accounting for all of the No. 5 grower’s decline in
official exports, a top cocoa official said.
The Central African
state announced on Wednesday that output during the August-July season
dropped to 197,000 tonnes, below a target of exceeding last year’s
205,000 tonnes.
“Our rough estimate
is that these underground operators process about 10,000 tonnes of
cocoa beans and smuggle a similar amount to neighbouring countries,”
Apollinaire Ngwe, president of the Coffee and Cocoa Interprofessional
Board, said.
“For this reason,
the figures published today, we believe, do not reflect the real
situation of the cocoa sub-sector because of the growing number of
these unlicensed and illegal operators,” he said.
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