Cameroon's sole cocoa processing firm, SIC-Cacao, bought 4,795 tonnes of cocoa in the first two months of the 2008/2009 season, up 13 percent compared with the previous year, a company official said on Friday. "This increase in purchases is because we installed new equipment in a bid to raise the quantity of beans we process into finished products," SIC-Cacao buying and logistics director Valentin Foketchian told Reuters.
SIC-Cacao's purchases in the first two months of the 2008-2009 August-July season totalled 4,795 tonnes, up from 3,715 tonnes a year earlier, according to data from the National Cocoa and Coffee Board (NCCB) which Foketchian confirmed.
September purchases were sharply up at 3,047 tonnes, from 1,804 tonnes in September 2007, while August's purchases were marginally down at 1,747.8 tonnes from 1,911 tonnes a year earlier. Exports over the first two months of the season were down to 11,454 tonnes compared with 14,770 tonnes for the same period in the 2007/08 season after a slow start to the season in August, according to industry data released earlier this week.