(Ecofin Agency) - The Ivorian government just announced that the second edition of the International Trade Fair on Equipment and Technologies for Cashew Processing (SIETTA) would take place on 17, 18, and 19 November 2016.

According to Bruno Nabagné Koné, spokesperson of government, the event will be held under the theme “Industrializing the local cashew sector for a new Ivory Coast”. “The fair aims, mainly, to insure the transfer to Cote d’Ivoire of technologies, the promotion of better technologies and the improving of productivity in companies that operate in the Ivorian cashew processing sector”, he highlighted.

An ambition which can be easily understood given that Cote d’Ivoire, world’s new leading cashew producer with more than 700,000 tons, processes only 10% of its output. The next step hence, is to get as many people as possible into cashew production while giving them the means to locally process the nuts, he added. “Our goal is to process 100% of the cashew produced in Cote d’Ivoire by 2020,” Koné said.

SIETTA’s first edition took place in 2014.

Aaron Akinocho