Bissau, Feb. 5, 2025 (Lusa) - Last year was the best year in Guinea-Bissau for the cashew business in the last five years, with the price paid to producers almost double the minimum set, the government revealed on Wednesday.
After a 2023 campaign that was considered a failure, the 2024 campaign was more profitable for producers and the state, even though initial expectations of 200,000 tonnes of production was not confirmed, the government's director general of trade, Lassana Faty, told Lusa.
Faty said that production totalled 178,000 tonnes, of which 163,000 were exported.
The government set a minimum price to be paid to producers per kilo of cashew nuts at 300 CFA francs (€0.46), but the actual value was almost double that, with an average price of 570 CFA francs (€0.87), according to figures released to Lusa.
According to the government, 49 companies and more than 1,700 trading post intermediaries (who buy directly from producers) took part in the campaign.
Last year was more profitable both for producers and for state coffers, thanks to an increase in export contracts, it said.
Indeed, it was the best campaign in the last five years, according to the government, which today marked the end of the 2024 cashew nut marketing campaign, which began last 15 March.
The ceremony was attended by the prime minister, Rui Duarte Barros, for whom the campaign that is now ending "represents much more than numbers and volumes commercialised" for the country.
"Cashew nuts are not just an agricultural product; they are a source of livelihood for thousands of families and the pillar of Guinea-Bissau's economy," he pointed out.
The minister of trade, Orlando Mendes Vegas, emphasised that cashew nuts "are the country's most important economic activity and a strategic product for the national economy, accounting for ninety percent of all the country's exports."
This production, he said, generates seasonal employment and contributes to revenue for the public treasury, through the fees and taxes levied on operators.
The most critical challenge of this campaign has been the weak participation of the national banking sector in financing operators, noted the acting secretary general of the Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Agriculture and Services (CCIAS), Saliu Bá.
"The banks' main justification has been the difficulty of obtaining guarantees, the slowness of the justice system in resolving disputes and the volatility of the prices set by the government," he said.
HFI/ARO // ARO.
Lusa
