COCOBOD CEO to sign $1.5 billion syndicated loan for 2021/2022 cocoa season today
Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), Dr Joseph Aidoo, is expected to later today sign a syndicated loan of $1.5 billion for the 2021/2022 cocoa crop season.
The signing ceremony follows COCOBOD’s ability to secure an additional $200 million loan facility for purchases of cocoa beans for the 2021/2022 season after the $1.3 billion syndicated loan for the 2020/2021 season was inadequate to finance cocoa purchases due to the historic 1 million metric tonnes of cocoa harvested for the season.
“The high production of 1,041, 258 million metric tonnes of cocoa for the 2020/2021 season exceeded our expectation and so the $1.3 billion loan acquired was not enough for the purchases that were made. But we have learnt our lesson and that is why we are going in for the $1.5 billion.
“This is also because we are expecting that in the 2021/2022 season we will also harvest above $1 million metric tonnes,” averred Dr Aidoo at the Olam Ghana Managers’ Conference on September 6, 2021.
According to the COCOBOD CEO, the loan syndication process has already been completed with the first drawdown of the loan expected to be made in the middle of October this year.
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“For the 2021/2022 Cocoa season, we are going in for $1.5 billion, we are already done with the syndication process and by mid-October, we should have the first drawdown of the loan,” stated Dr Aidoo at the Conference.
The loan facility aside being used to finance cocoa purchases, will also be used for related operational activities in the crop season.
COCOBOD has consistently and successfully, through the pre-export syndicated finance facility, obtained a receivables-backed syndicated loan each year from the international money market to finance its cocoa purchases.
The latest loan facility, which has an interest rate plus libor of 1.75%, is repayable in seven calendar months and projected to help purchase about 1 million metric tonnes of cocoa.
COCOBOD for the 2020/2021 cocoa season exceeded its production target to reach a record 1.06 million metric tons beating the previous record of 1.024 million metric tons in the 2010/ 2011 crop season.
