Indian company sets 18% share of world’s cashew nut output for Ghana by 2014

An Indian company based in Ghana, Rajkumar Impex, says it intends to increase the output of cashew nut in the country to 18% shares of the crop’s global output by 2014, the Economist reports October 19, 2011.

The company processes between 8-10% of cashew nut globally and 20% in Africa.

“By 2014 he intends to have 18% of the global total, Venkatesan Rajkumar, founder and boss of Rajkumar Impex told UK-based publication, in an interview.

It has a cashew nut factory in Techiman in the Brong Ahafo Region which according to the Economist, Rajkumar  said he is investing $9 million in the factory to save the cost of transporting bulky material by sea all the way to India.

When the Techiman factory is fully opened in November this year, Rajkumar told the publication that it will be one of Africa’s few fully mechanised processing plants, drying, roasting shelling and grading some 50 tonnes of raw nuts a day.

He plans of opening new businesses in Benin and Côte d’Ivoire, and maybe another one in Ghana as well as expanding in southern and eastern Africa, buying a factory in Mozambique and hoping to build one in Tanzania, the Economist said.

According to the publication, African farmers grow about 40% of the world’s cashews, but only around 10% of the crop (less in the west, more in the east) is processed in Africa, according to the African Cashew Alliance, an industry group. Most African nuts go to India or to Vietnam, which grows and prepares more cashews than any other country. The Alliance wants the continent to process 35% of its own raw nuts by 2020.

By Ekow Quandzie