Cambodian banana exports tumble 11.2% in 2024
Cambodian banana exports tumble 11.2% in 2024
Cambodia’s banana exports fell 11.2 percent by value in the first 11 months of last year, dragged down by a dramatic slump in Chinese imports and tough competition from neighbouring countries.
The total value of the Kingdom’s banana exports fell to $138 million from $156.2 million in the same period a year earlier, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) said yesterday.
The fall comes as imports by China, which account for almost 95 percent of Cambodian banana exports, fell 8.5 percent in the first three quarters of last year to 1.2 million tonnes.
Cambodia is the third-largest supplier to China after Vietnam and the Philippines.
In 2023, more than 260,000 tonnes of Cambodia’s 290,000 tonnes of banana exports went to China, according to the MAFF.
Agriculture is one of the four pillars supporting Cambodia’s economy. The others are garments, tourism and construction.
Cambodia began exporting bananas to China in 2019, shipping a special variety that can withstand storage and transit for up to two months.
The fall in banana exports comes against a backdrop of surging trade for the agricultural sector as a whole last year, led by a 16.4 percent rise in paddy rice to $1.3 billion and a 13.4 percent rise in cassava to $622 million. In the first 11 months
Cambodia’s top agricultural exports are rice, bananas, cassava, cashew nuts, corn, pepper, tobacco and rubber.
