• Sosucam opens 2025-2026 sugar season, urges tighter import controls
  

• Company warns of oversupply risks, cites global subsidies and local disruption
  

• Sector faces labour, competitiveness, and policy challenges amid fragile recovery
  

Cameroon’s main sugar producer, the Société Sucrière du Cameroun (Sosucam), has opened the 2025-2026 crushing season. The company has also renewed its call for tighter import controls, saying the measures are needed to keep the troubled local industry afloat.

In a letter submitted on Nov. 13 to the Minister of Commerce, the company said import management is necessary to shield domestic producers from external pressure. Sosucam, which employs 8,000 workers and works with 1,500 subcontractors, said its priority this season is to process the full sugarcane crop and maintain a steady supply to the domestic market.

The company, citing figures from the interprofessional body Uprasc, said there is no justification for authorizing additional imports. More than 100,000 tons of sugar are already available in Cameroon, according to Sosucam: around 70,000 tons from the Douala refinery and roughly 30,000 tons of imported sugar earmarked for distribution and industrial use. Combined with rising domestic output, Sosucam says these volumes will cover national demand for the duration of the season.

Sosucam also warned of a potential oversupply if sugar destined for Chad enters the domestic market. These stocks, currently blocked in Douala and Ngaoundéré following a recent increase in Chadian customs duties, could be diverted into Cameroon and put further pressure on prices and local producers.

Foreign Subsidies and Pressure on Local Production

The company links part of the strain on the sector to the policies of major producing countries such as Brazil and India, which it says heavily subsidise their sugar industries. These subsidies, according to Sosucam, hold global prices below market levels and encourage import demand in Cameroon. The company is urging the government to maintain regulatory continuity to avoid what it calls a destabilization of the domestic market.

The launch of the new season follows a sharp crisis that halted Sosucam’s operations between Jan. 26 and Feb. 8, 2025. A strike by sugarcane cutters over pay and working conditions escalated into violence, with the company reporting a loss of 50,000 tons of sugarcane, the destruction of about 1,000 hectares of crops, and financial losses estimated at 5 billion CFA francs (8.1 million dollars). Sosucam had already posted 22 billion CFA francs in losses in 2024.

To restart operations, the company raised the hourly wage from 280 to 285 CFA francs and hired 600 additional cutters. Management says tensions have eased, but the episode highlighted the sector's fragile labour relations and exposure to operational shocks.

Founded in 1965, Sosucam is 74 percent owned by French shareholders and 26 percent owned by the government. It says its annual payroll reaches 14 billion CFA francs and supports thousands of direct and indirect jobs. Despite holding a dominant market share, Sosucam does not cover the country’s total demand, estimated at around 300,000 tons per year. The state regularly authorizes imports to prevent supply shortages.

The government now faces a dual challenge: protecting domestic production without triggering supply gaps or price increases.

Competitiveness Questions Persist

While Sosucam denounces foreign subsidies, it benefits from a highly protective environment at home that includes preferential tax conditions, import restrictions and limited competition. After nearly five decades of activity, analysts say the company's performance still falls short of global standards. The early 2025 shutdown revealed gaps in working conditions, agricultural investment, industrial maintenance and social governance.

Industry observers argue that gains in competitiveness will require stronger production capacity, higher yields per hectare, better extraction rates and improved plant reliability. Without such progress, they say, long-term protection risks entrenching market dominance instead of driving efficiency gains.

Sosucam insists that sustained import controls are essential to protect a strategic national industry. Critics counter that prolonged restrictions mainly reinforce Sosucam’s position and slow reform. The company argues that loosening import rules abruptly would further destabilize the market, undermine domestic output and threaten jobs and local value creation.

As the new crushing season begins, two priorities define the sector’s outlook: stabilizing labour relations to secure harvesting and processing, and clarifying public policy on how to balance protection for local producers with reliable supply for households and industry. Industry observers say the future credibility of Cameroon’s sugar sector depends on reaching that equilibrium in which production volumes, prices and investment commitments are aligned.

Amina Malloum, Business in Cameroon