02:42 p.m Jul 13, 1999 Eastern
ABIDJAN, July 13 (Reuters) - Cocoa experts from Ivory Coast and Ghana on Tuesday began a two-day meeting aimed at firming up plans to coordinate cocoa sales in order to exert some influence over the world market after liberalisation.
The two countries together produce almost 70 percent of the world's cocoa.
A final statement from this meeting is due Wednesday. The cocoa experts from the two countries met in closed session on Tuesday evening.
Ivory Coast is fully liberalising its cocoa sector from the 1999/2000 (October to September) season and Ghana is partially opening up exports after introducing limited competition into internal buying.
Opening the meeting, Ivory Coast Agriculture Minister Lambert Kouassi Konan said his government was fully committed to liberalisation.
``However, liberalisation does not imply neglect, or the complete abandonment of economic actors,'' he said.
Ivory Coast wanted to pursue with Ghana ``a concerted strategy of rationalisation of the production of cocoa.
``Beyond that, Ivory Coast wants to get Ghana's adherence to a policy of concerted marketing involving both institutional and private operators,'' Kouassi Konan said.
He went through the factors behind the fall in world cocoa prices since May 1998 and said total stocks at the end of the current season were likely to be 1.09 million tonnes, or four-and-a-half months of industry's needs, which was bearish for prices.
With demand likely to remain weak, ``we Ivorians and Ghanaians could agree to stabilise through formal commitments our national production of cocoa at levels likely to favour over time a balance between supply and demand, with a positive impact on the ratio of stocks to consumption,'' he said.
Operators could adopt ``a strategy of gradual sales spread out over the length of the cocoa season,'' he suggested.
Ghanaian Finance Minister Kwame Peprah, leading his country's delegation, said the livelihood of millions of small farmers in both countries depended on world cocoa prices.
He wanted to ``develop strategies to make sure the cocoa industry does not suffer, and suffer along with the bulk of our folk.''
