The world's leading cashew producer, Côte d'Ivoire has set itself the ambition of processing half of its harvest locally by 2030. To achieve this objective, the government is actively encouraging private investment to strengthen the country's industrial capacity. In Côte d'Ivoire, Souleymane Diarrassouba, Minister of Trade and Industry, inaugurated a cashew nut processing unit in Attinguié on Monday, January 27. With a total cost of 24 billion CFA francs ($15.8 million), this facility built by Singapore's Valency International has a processing capacity of 45,000 tons of cashew nuts per year. With this launch, the year 2025 is off to a strong start for the Ivorian processing industry, which had already made good progress last year. Over the whole of 2024, Ivorian manufacturers processed 344,000 tonnes of cashew nuts, a record level that confirms the country's position as the country's third largest processor worldwide, behind Vietnam and India. Positive outlook for 2025 The dynamic of strengthening the processing sector should continue with optimistic forecasts for the 2025 campaign. The authorities are indeed counting on the processing of 400,000 tonnes of nuts, or 34.7% of the harvest expected this year (1.15 million tonnes). To facilitate the supply of manufacturers, the government has set up an exclusive period dedicated to local processors, extending from January 24 to March 15, 2025. During this period, processors will have priority access to raw nuts before the market opens to exporters. The anticipated increase in processed volumes is also based on the ramp-up of the units that came into service in 2024 and are expected to operate at full capacity this year. For example, the company Ecocajou, which specializes in the cashew nut trade, launched a unit in Odiénné in June 2024 that is capable of processing 15,000 tons of cashew nuts annually. A month later, the Emirati company Pan African Agro Commodities (PAAC) started up its processing unit based in Boundiali , with an initial capacity of 18,000 tons, expandable to 150,000 tons in the long term. During the Cashew Nut Investment Forum, held on Monday, September 23 in Abidjan, the Cotton and Cashew Nut Council managed, for example, to conclude commitment agreements with three foreign companies to invest a total of $28 million in raw material processing projects. More recently, the regulator concluded an agreement in November 2024 with the Emirati Rosyson which wants to inject $24 million into the construction of a factory planned to process 60,000 tonnes of cashew nuts per year.