CAMEROON – Cameroon and Russia have launched the Russian-Cameroonian coffee market exchange to revamp trade of the commodity that was disrupted by the war in Ukraine which is now in its second year.
The relaunch occurred in September 2023 in the presence of the Russian ambassador to Cameroon, Anatoly Bashkin and Cameroon’s minister of commerce, Luc Magloire Mbarga Atangana
Luc Magloire said that the plan has been in the works for years and that it was supposed to start being implemented in 2017 but that no progress has been achieved since the inaugural Cameroon Economic Days, which were held from October 19 to 23, 2016 in Moscow.
By establishing the coffee market exchange, the two nations envision a platform for marketing Cameroonian coffee on the Russian market, allowing Cameroonian producers to connect with Russian consumers.
The minister also mentioned that the network for exchanging coffee will promote Cameroon as a preferable location for Russian investment.
Luc Magloire estimates that Russian coffee imports from Cameroon represent 6-7 percent of the country’s total exports, which total about CFA96 billion (US$155.28 million).
However, Cameroon witnessed a decline in its exports to Russia following the outbreak of the Ukraine war in February 2022
The minister also pointed out that while Cameroon’s imports from Russia have decreased, its exports have improved, growing by an astounding 16 times over the past two years.
Cameroon is keen to leverage Russia’s population of 146 million as a significant market for its coffee exports.
The country has however seen its coffee production numbers plummet in the recent years due to a number of factors including declining yield as a result of ageing coffee plantations, low youth participation in farming, and farmers abandoning coffee for more lucrative land use activities.
Data from the National Cocoa and Coffee Board (Oncc) show that in the 2020-2021 season, the volume of marketed production dropped by 12,534 tonnes to 12,157 tonnes in the 2019-2020 season, the lowest level ever reached in the last five seasons.
Coffee exports further declined in the 2021-2022 season with data from the ONCC revealing that the west African nation exported 11,557 tons of coffee, of which 10,579 tons were Robusta and 977 tons were Arabica.
