Competitiveness in the Cash Crop Sector: The Case of the Cameroonian Cocoa Industry Value Chain

Since independence, the cocoa industry of Cameroon has gone through various phases suffering from deregulation of the industry, globalisation, trade liberalisation, natural disasters etc. This paper aims at analysing the competitive performance of a very tradeable global commodity and the main export crop of Cameroon from 1961 to 2013 through the application of a step-wise analytical framework adapted from ISMEA, (1999); Esterhuizen, (2006); Van Rooyen and Esterhuizen (2012) accommodating aspects of agri-value chain analysis. This conventional analysis was expanded to include value chain comparisons between various value-adding processes in the Cameroonian cocoa value chain as well as consensus vs. variations in opinions of different actors within the cocoa industry regarding the factors influencing the industry�s competitive performance from the application of the Porter Diamond model. Information from chain actors through the cocoa executive survey (CES) was used to further expand the framework and analyse the relationship between the various factors affecting the industry�s performance i.e. identify factors which are interrelated in influencing the industry and those that show a degree of independence. Such information is viewed as facilitative for strategic planning purposes. Results revealed that three Porter determinants positively influence the industry�s performance while two were constraining implying that the Cameroon cocoa industry, while performing positively, can strive to increase competitiveness considerably by applying selected industry-based strategies. Keywords: Cameroonian cocoa industry, competitive performance, relative trade advantage (RTA), cocoa executive survey (CES), Porter Diamond.