Projected 10% decline in cocoa production jeopardizes COCOBOD’s 950,000 mt production target
World cocoa production for the 2021/2022 cocoa season is expected to decline by 3 percent.
For the world’s largest cocoa producers – Ivory Coast and Ghana – the expected decline will result in a production decline of 3 percent and 10 percent respectively.
“World cocoa production for 2021/22 season is estimated to decline by 3.0 percent from the previous season; Ivory Coast’s cocoa production is expected to decline by 3.0 percent and Ghana’s production to decline by 10.0 percent,” noted the September report on the Global Economy and Ghana’s Balance of Payments Development by the Bank of Ghana
The projected decline puts into jeopardy the COCOBOD’s production target of 950,000 mt for the 2021/2022 cocoa season and the possibility of the company recording another million metric tonnes of production as was the case in the 2020/2021 cocoa season.
For the 2021/2022 cocoa crop season, the COCOBOD has signed a syndicated loan of $1.5 billion
The $1.5 billion syndicated loan represents an additional $200 million loan facility secured 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 BoG in its newly published report, notes that developments in the prices of these key commodities impacted on the export performance for the first eight months of 2021 as total export receipts for the period recorded a growth of 2.36 percent on a year-on-year basis to US$9,857.22 million supported by higher prices realised from the three major exports: gold, cocoa and crude oil.
“Price increases of 6.20 percent for gold, 58.09 percent for crude oil and 4.22 percent for Cocoa beans were recorded during the period. However, the impact of these higher prices on export performance was moderated by a sharp decline in the volume of gold and crude oil exports by 20.9 and 20.1 percent, respectively. By contrast, the volume of cocoa beans exports during the period increased by 23.9 percent,” the Bank noted.
“On the other hand, merchandise imports over the period increased by 8.6 percent to US$8,982.41 million owing mainly to increased demand for refined petroleum products as economic activity picks up.
“Oil imports (including crude, gas, refined products, and other oil products) improved by 36.8 percent while non-oil merchandise imports bill grew by 3.8 percent. The higher import bill relative to export receipts resulted in a narrowed trade surplus of US$874.82 million compared with US$1,358.08 million same time a year ago,” the BoG added
