Ivory Coast Jan-March rubber exports up 38pc

ABIDJAN: Ivory Coast exported 163,643 tonnes of natural rubber in the first three months of 2017, up 38 percent from the same period a year earlier, provisional port data showed on Thursday.

Ivory Coast, the world's top cocoa producer, is also Africa's leading grower of natural rubber. Exports have risen in recent years as farmers, lured by the promise of more stable incomes, have increasingly switched from cocoa.