Kouassi Adjoumani, Ivorian Minister of Agriculture, Rural Development and Food Production, has strongly encouraged national and international investors to invest in the cashew sector in Cote d’Ivoire. The minister made the remarks at the opening of the investment forum for the cashew industry in Abidjan.
He emphasised that the annual production of cashew nuts in Cote d’Ivoire has significantly increased, rising from 500,000 tonnes in 2013 to 1.2 million tonnes in 2023.This growth results from several government programmes and projects to energise the cashew sector and boost investments. However, he pointed out that the added value from the local processing of this product is still largely underexploited.In fact, in 2023, only 21 per cent of the Ivorian cashew nut production was processed locally, which is far from the government’s goal of achieving 50 per cent local processing by 2030. To achieve this objective, the minister called for massive investments to competitively increase cashew nuts’ national production and processing capacities in Cote d’Ivoire. It is worth noting that Cote d’Ivoire is the world’s leading producer of cashew nuts.
On the first day of this forum, which will continue until Wednesday, the Cotton-Cashew Council announced signing three memorandums of understanding worth 16 billion CFA francs ($27 million) with investors.