(Business in Cameroon) – According to data compiled by the Cameroon Banana Association (Assobacam), the Cameroon Development Corporation (CDC), the state-owned agribusiness that operates banana, rubber, and oil palm plantations in the South West and Littoral regions, exported 23,416 tons of bananas in the first seven months of 2025. These shipments represent less than half of the volumes exported in 2015, a year before separatist unrest erupted in the North West and South West regions, from which CDC continues to suffer major losses.
Assobacam figures show that in the first seven months of 2015, CDC shipped 57,630 tons of bananas to the international market. The state enterprise, the second-largest employer in Cameroon after the public administration, even recorded banana exports of 61,010 tons in the same period in 2016—nearly three times the 2025 level—the year the conflict began between separatists and the national army in the Anglophone regions.
These figures highlight CDC’s struggle to fully recover from the crisis despite ongoing state financial support. The latest effort came with a presidential decree authorizing the Minister of Economy, Alamine Ousmane Mey, to secure a CFA4.6 billion loan from Standard Chartered Bank in London to support the company.
Officially, this financing will be used for the supply and installation of processing plants for palm oil, margarine, and rubber, sectors considered strategic for diversifying and modernizing CDC’s activities.
A long production halt
The decree came just days after the government concluded, on September 15, 2025, an agreement with five local banks and financial institutions to settle CFA15.7 billion in wage arrears owed to nearly 20,000 CDC employees. This move is part of a broader plan to clear a total of CFA35.7 billion in back wages accumulated between 2018 and 2022.
An initial CFA20 billion package was already disbursed to CDC staff in 2024 through a first debt buyback and settlement deal between the state and two local banks. That deal also included the takeover of CFA31.8 billion in tax debt, which was then converted into company equity.
So far, these injections of state funds, along with earlier financing arrangements, have helped clean up CDC’s accounts, stabilize labor relations, and clear the way for renewed investment. However, operational results remain weak despite signs of improvement. The scale of the crisis’s impact is reflected in CDC’s CFA38.7 billion in cumulative losses between 2019 and 2021, the suspension of production at 12 out of 29 sites in 2018, the loss of 6,124 jobs, and the company’s disappearance from Cameroon’s banana exporters’ registry between September 2018 and May 2020 due to the prolonged production halt.
