Ivory Coast cashew processors not getting promised bank funding

FILE PHOTO: Drissa Dembele, a farmer and buyer of raw cashew, walks on unshelled nuts that were spreaded out to dry, in his courtyard in Katiola, Ivory Coast, May 27, 2023. —REUTERS

ABIDJAN — Cashew processors in Ivory Coast are not receiving state-owned bank funding to purchase raw cashew nuts provided by sector regulator CCA as part of a scheme to boost local processing capacity, processors and CCA sources said.

Ivory Coast, the world’s top cashew nut producer as well as cocoa, has been seeking to make local processors more competitive and more efficient in the face of Asian multinationals.

Both the CCA and the government have adopted a number of measures to boost local processors, including subsidies, tax breaks and granting them exclusive purchasing rights during the first two months of the cashew season.

Under a scheme that started three weeks ago, the CCA provides 20 percent of local processors’ raw material requirements at the start of the cashew season via financing from the state-owned Banque Nationale d’Investissement (BNI).

Local processors, which have a total processing capacity of over 130,000 tonnes of cashew nuts, have received around 40,000 tonnes from CCA suppliers.

But two processors said they had not received any BNI funding to pay CCA suppliers for the raw cashews, causing stocks to build up as suppliers are threatening to halt deliveries.

“We are receiving raw nuts from suppliers, but there is no funding to pay for them. The bank doesn’t support us,” said the director of an Ivorian cashew processing company based in Bouake, the heart of the country’s cashew processing industry.

“Everyone is playing the game except the bank,” said the director of another Bouake-based processing company.

Confirmed

Two CCA officials who did not wish to be named confirmed the issue and told Reuters they were in talks with BNI.

“We are doing what we can to improve the situation, but we are waiting to hear back from the bank,” one official said.

The BNI communications unit did not respond to a request for comment.

Two sources at BNI said funding was stalled because companies that financed the scheme had not paid the bank.

A senior CCA source said financing shortages had occurred in the past, and that the number of participating companies had been reduced to five this year, down from nine, to avoid a repeat of the situation.

Ivory Coast processes around 36 percent of its cashew crop, with the aim of reaching 50 percent by 2030. Cashew production is expected to reach around 1.2 million tonnes this year.