Ivory Coast (Côte d'Ivoire)
The post-Independence government permitted a major expansion in the commercial exploitation of Ivory Coast's forests, so much so that the country became much the leading exporter of tropical timber in Africa. This led to severe degradation of the country's forests and facilitated the encroachment of subsistence and export-oriented cash crop agriculture - which now poses a major threat to the forest ecosystems that remain.

A number of the companies that participated in (and presumably profited from) this expansion / degradation have diversified or shifted their activities to countries within the Congo Basin - initially Cameroon. Many are members of the ATIBT and IFIA (organisations which are scarcely representative given that their membership does not include African, Lebanese or ethnic Chinese companies). Entrepreneurs from the Lebanese diaspora and Italian expatriates have a major presence in the country's timber industry.

Italy has been the predominant destination for many years. Spain appears to have taken up the slack created by France's (and others') response to the ban on log exports that became effective in the late 1990s - France's primary interest in African tropical timber is in logs.

Although East Asia has not become a substantial export market for timber from Ivory Coast, it is likely to be a market for timber (primarily logs) from Liberia that are being exported through Ivory Coast. Growth in India's imports from the Ivory Coast coincided with the absence of exports from Liberia.