<p></p><p>Guinea-Bissau has already exported some 50,000 tons of cashew nuts and expects to reach 150,000 tons by the end of the current sales campaign of this strategic product for the country’s economy, the Minister of Commerce and Crafts, Vicente Fernandes said on Sunday. The minister acknowledged that the quantity expected to be exported will be lower than the 175,000 tons sold to foreign buyers in 2017.</p> <p>Fernandes explained the “turbulence” in the sales process was due to a drop in the number of Indian buyers, who have traditionally acquired Guinean production, as a result of the Indian government eliminating the subsidy it granted to the product. Fernandes was speaking in Gabu, 200 kilometres east of Bissau, to farmers and intermediaries in the process of selling cashew nuts in that locality, as part of a tour that has already taken him to other regions of the country to encourage producers to sell their products, “even below the 1,000 CFA francs (1.5 euros) announced at the beginning of the campaign by the President of the Republic, before the rainy season gets worse.” The 2018 sales campaign for cashew nuts began in March and is due to end next September. Guinea-Bissau exported 180,000 tons of cashew nuts in the 2016 marketing year. </p><p></p>