Browse Data and Analysis

The FAS Accra, Abidjan (Post) Gulfood Dubai-2025 buyers delegation is generating some $16 million in potential new sales for the Coastal West Africa Region. Post led its largest buyers delegation to date from the Coastal West Africa region – 12 from Ghana, 10 from Côte d’Ivoire, and two from Togo.

FAS Abidjan, Accra (Post) sees the Côte d'Ivoire government's supports, improved inputs, and irrigation investments helping to boost rice production yields.

Côte d'Ivoire is the gateway to the francophone West African market. Its food processing sector is dynamic and growing, offering new opportunities for U.S.-origin food ingredient exporters bold enough to pioneer this market.

The French food processing industry mobilizes more than 19,000 companies, of which nearly 98 percent are small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The sector generates $177 billion in annual revenue, and it indirectly contributes to nearly 2 million jobs in France.

FAS Abidjan, Accra (Post) forecasts Côte d’Ivoire’s market year (MY) 2025/2026 (August-July) cotton fiber production at 745,000 bales (480 pounds - lb.), up two percent from the MY 2024/2025 estimate of 730,000 bales.

This report provides information to U.S. exporters of agricultural and related products on how to do business with the Food Processing industry in Panama. It is primarily a service – based economy, but food processing is one of its top industries.

FAS Abidjan, Accra (Post) foresees Ivorian cocoa bean production in market year (MY) 2024/2025 (October-September) climbing upwards towards 1.8 million metric tons (MMT, improving by over 2 percent from the MY 2023/2024 season’s 1.76 MMT production figure.

The African halal market is estimated at over $150 billion. In the Coastal West Africa Region, Côte d'Ivoire's halal food and agricultural products market is similarly growing.

On January 14, 2025, the Panamanian Food Agency (APA) and the Ministry of Health of Panama confirmed that the dairy plants registration process has been significantly expedited, resolving a trade barrier created on July 17, 2023.

The Ivorian Ministry of Animal Resources and Fisheries (Ministère des Ressources Animales et Halieutiques-MIRAH) organized the November 22-24, 2024, Abidjan Livestock and Agricultural Exhibition (Le Sommet de l'Élevage d'Abidjan-SELAB).

As a member of the European Union, France implements EU regulations for the import of animal and plant products.

Although Panama highlighted the use of biotechnology in its Agricultural State Policy Law 352 of 2023, Panama has not yet established the implementing regulations of Law 48 of 2002, which created the National Commission of Biosafety for Genetically Modified Organisms.