FOCUS ON: Ivory Coastff

Ivory Coast is the most important tuna harbor of Africa with a population of about 18 million people.

Maintaining close ties to France since its independence in 1960, the diversification of agriculture for export, and the encouragement of foreign investment, have made Ivory Coast one of the most prosperous of the tropical African states.

The Ivory Coast economy is largely based and depends heavily on the agricultural sector of which forestry and fisheries account for more than 33% of GDP and 66% of exports. Ivory Coast produces 40% of the world’s cocoa crops and is the major exporter of bananas, coffee, cotton, palm oil, pineapple, rubber, tropical wood products and tuna.

Ivory Coast’s main tuna export product is in cans, being the European Union (EU) the sole destination since the year 2006.

Among the different tuna products the EU imports from Ivory Coast, canned tuna is by far number one, as you can see in the chart here below.



Although export figures of this country’s canned tuna to the EU dropped significantly from 2004 to 2005, data indicates that they are on a slightly increasing trend.

During the first 6 months of 2007, Ivory Coast delivered a total of 2.278.829 cartons (48x185g) of canned tuna to the EU, which represented an increase of more than 50% compared to the same period in 2006.



The major importing EU member state heading the lead with 77% of the total EU imports of this item was France, followed at a far distance by Italy and with only very small quantities entering Belgium and Poland.  66% of the total Ivory Coast canned tuna supplied to the EU during that period was in brine.



Other tuna products also supplied during Jan-June 2007 were pre-cooked loins and frozen whole round Bigeye. The quantity of pre-cooked tuna loins was 180 M/T corresponding to a 20% increase compared to the same period in the previous year. 97% of this quantity went to the French market, while Italy took the rest.

The full quantity of 384 M/T of frozen whole round Bigeye which were exported during the first 6 month of 2007 went to Spain, while France was the sole importer of the only 8 M/T exported in 2006.

Ivory Coast’ tuna supplies to the United States are very insignificant, just around 10 M/T within the last 7 years.