Ghana: Value addition will unleash the cocoa industry's potential

Published 2023년 3월 31일

Tridge summary

Ghana is urged to increase its presence in the global cocoa industry by focusing on value addition, as the industry currently generates most of its wealth from secondary processing, which is lacking in Ghana. This results in raw cocoa producers like Ghana and Ivory Coast earning a small fraction of the industry's total wealth. The Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) is aiming to increase Ghana's processing capacity from 40 percent to 50 percent within the next three years. The country also plans to boost local cocoa consumption, which has seen a 50 percent increase from 2017 to 2022, but still falls short of non-cocoa producing countries. The government's target of 50 percent processing is seen as achievable and could strengthen Ghana's position in the global market while also creating job opportunities and reducing import costs.

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Original content

The country can become a bigger force in the global cocoa industry by prioritising value addition. This is because around 80 percent of the global cocoa industry’s annual wealth of between US$130billion and US$150billion is generated during secondary processing (cocoa paste manufacturing), which continues to be non-existent in the country. Intrinsically, with limited processing capacity producers like Ghana receive peanuts from exporting raw cocoa beans. For instance, Ghana and Ivory Coast – which produce 65 percent of the world’s cocoa, earn around a paltry 4 percent of the industry’s wealth of about US$150billion, because the majority of their beans are exported in a raw state. Against this backdrop, a Principal Public Affairs Officer at Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), Benjamin Larweh, has said the only way to change this narrative is to invest in processing capacity. If done on an industrial scale, he said, value addition carries much higher economic value and could help to ...

Source: Thebftonline