In 2025, cocoa became Cameroon's top export product, surpassing crude oil for the first time in decades. According to a report by the National Institute of Statistics (INS), cocoa accounted for 26.3% of the country's export earnings, while crude oil stood at 22.9%. Liquefied natural gas (LNG) and processed cocoa products (paste and butter) followed with 11.4% and 12.2% respectively.
This shift is mainly due to global market conditions. Oil exports suffered from falling prices, while cocoa benefited from strong demand and high prices. The INS highlights that cocoa export revenues increased by 18.7% in 2025, reaching 810.2 billion FCFA, after a 90% increase in 2024. In contrast, oil revenues decreased by 29.6% to 705.6 billion FCFA, due to a 16.7% drop in unit export prices.
Cameroon's cocoa sector is no longer limited to the export of raw beans. Local processing is gaining ground with the establishment of new grinders such as Neo Industry, Atlantic Cocoa and Africa Processing, as well as increased capacity from existing players such as SIC Cacaos. In 2025, cocoa paste and butter generated 377 billion FCFA, or 12.2% of export earnings. Cameroon even exceeded 100,000 tonnes of locally processed beans.
This dynamic has enabled Cameroon to position itself as the 7th largest exporter of cocoa paste and the 9th largest exporter of cocoa butter in the world in 2024. This progress is an encouraging sign for the Cameroonian economy, as it diversifies its sources of income and reduces its dependence on oil.
While current conditions favor cocoa, the rise of local processing is a more structural factor that could ensure the sustainability of this new hierarchy of Cameroonian exports. Time will tell whether cocoa will remain at the top of exports in the long term, but the trend is clearly towards a diversification of the economy.
