Cameroon Export Trade Data: $4.97B in 2023, Down 11.7%

The Netherlands Leads a Fuel-and-Cocoa-Driven Buyer List

Cameroon shipped $4.97 billion worth of goods abroad in 2023, down 11.7% from $5.62 billion the year before. Netherlands absorbed 23.2% of that total, worth $1.15 billion, nearly double the value bought by the next largest destination. That single relationship rests on two separate commodities rather than one. The Port of Amsterdam describes Amsterdam and neighboring Zaanstad as together forming the largest cocoa cluster in the world, drawing beans from West and Central African growers, while the Netherlands is also home to Rotterdam, one of Europe's largest crude oil import and refining centers. Both of Cameroon's two largest export categories, fuel and cocoa, funnel disproportionately through Dutch ports as a result, a pattern that has less to do with Dutch demand for either commodity specifically and more to do with the Netherlands' role as a European entry point that then redistributes goods onward to refineries and processors elsewhere on the continent.

France ranked second at 12.4% ($615.01 million), a legacy of long-standing colonial-era trade ties, followed by India at 9.6% ($475.51 million) and China at 7.8% ($385.44 million). Together, the Netherlands, France, and India, the top three buyers, account for 45.2% of total export value. Chad ranked fifth at 5.0% ($247.86 million); as a landlocked neighbor with no coastline of its own, Chad depends heavily on Cameroon's ports and pipeline infrastructure for access to international trade routes, a relationship that shows up directly in these export figures. Italy added 4.4% ($220.28 million), Bangladesh 4.3% ($211.26 million), Indonesia 3.9% ($193.70 million), Spain 3.3% ($165.36 million), and Belgium rounded out the top ten, also at 3.3% ($164.94 million).

Mineral Fuels and Cocoa Dominate What Cameroon Sells

Mineral fuels, mineral oils, and related distillation products dominate what Cameroon sells abroad, accounting for 54.1% of total export value in 2023, worth $2.69 billion, more than every other category combined. Cocoa and cocoa preparations ranked a distant but substantial second at 17.4% ($864.62 million), reflecting Cameroon's standing as one of the world's leading cocoa-growing countries. Wood and articles of wood followed at 9.6% ($479.19 million), and cotton added 4.9% ($245.83 million), a raw material likely tied to the country's cotton-growing north and the broader West and Central African cotton belt that supplies garment manufacturers in South and Southeast Asia, a link that fits neatly with Bangladesh's 4.3% share among Cameroon's top buyers, since Bangladesh's own garment industry is one of the world's largest consumers of imported raw cotton.

The remaining categories are far smaller by comparison. Aluminium and articles thereof added 2.1% ($102.73 million), soap and related organic surface-active preparations contributed 1.9% ($92.62 million), and miscellaneous edible preparations added 1.1% ($53.57 million). Fruit and nuts brought in another 1.1% ($52.64 million), rubber and rubber articles 1.0% ($51.53 million), and coffee, tea, and spices closed out the top ten at 0.7% ($33.61 million). Combined, these six smaller categories make up a modest slice of the total, underscoring how heavily Cameroon's export earnings ride on just two commodities, fuel and cocoa, rather than a broad manufacturing base.

A Volatile Five Years Tied to Oil Prices

Cameroon's export total has moved sharply over the past five years. It stood at $4.08 billion in 2019, then fell to $3.15 billion in 2020, a period that coincided with a collapse in global oil prices and shipping disruption during the pandemic, a shock that would hit an economy this fuel-dependent especially hard. Exports then recovered to $4.29 billion in 2021 and climbed further to a five-year high of $5.62 billion in 2022, a year when global energy prices spiked well above prior norms, before easing 11.7% to $4.97 billion in 2023 as those prices normalized and settled back down from their wartime peak.

Given that more than half of Cameroon's export value rests on a single, globally priced commodity, the country's overall export totals track world oil prices almost as closely as they track its own production volumes. Cocoa provides some cushion against that swing, since cocoa prices and oil prices do not typically move together, but the category is still less than a third the size of fuel exports and cannot fully offset a large move in the energy market on its own. For a closer look at how individual partner countries or product categories break down year over year, the data panels above provide the full detail behind these figures.