Regia azienda monopolio banane

When the price of cotton plummeted after 1929, bananas became the most profitable crop in the empire. The RAMB had a small fleet of seven ships, including four newly commissioned banana boats which transported bananas quickly from the Horn of Africa to Europe. The RAMB worked directly with Italian banana producers in Giuba and Genale, who were represented by the Federation of Banana Growers of Somalia (FEBAS).

In 1939, 450,000 tn of bananas were transported to Italy by the four RAMB ships ("Ramb I, "Ramb II", "Ramb III","Ramb IV") and three other cargo ships (the "Capitan Cecchi", the "Capitan Bottego" and the "Duca degli Abruzzi").

Following Italy's entry into World War II, the banana boats were reclassified for naval use and saw service off the coast of Africa and in the Mediterranean. Of its seven ships, only Ramb III survived the war and was converted to a personal yacht for Josip Broz Tito, president of SFR Yugoslavia.

After Italy regained administrative control of Somalia in 1950, the government reactivated the Banana Monopoly as the Azienda Monopolio Banana (AMB) with the intent of revitalizing the heavily damaged agricultural industry. The AMB continued to regulate the price and marketing of bananas in Somalia until its dissolution in 1964, four years after the country gained independence.