Ghana says West Africa should grind more cocoa

Ghana's President John Kufuor has said that his country and neighbouring Ivory Coast should increase local cocoa bean processing to maximise revenue and better control the cocoa market.

"If both countries are able to process about 75 per cent of our raw cocoa beans, we would have the capacity to control prices of cocoa on the world market, " Kufuor told a news briefing late on Thursday at the end of a two-day visit to Ghana by Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo.

Installed cocoa grinding capacity in Ivory Coast currently stands at 311,000 tonnes or about one fourth of its annual crop of 1.1-1.2 million tonnes. Ghana's grinding capacity is 95,000 tonnes or about one fifth of its annual 440,000 tonnes of beans.

"We need to step up the value added to cocoa to strengthen our rights to set cocoa prices and command respect on the world market. I do not subscribe to the continued production of raw cocoa beans on the global market," Kufuor said.

In a communique signed by the two leaders, Ivory Coast pledged to plug the shortfalls in electricity production in Ghana by exporting power during peak hours when Ghana experiences serious outages.

This is good news for Ghana's cocoa processors, the state-owned Cocoa Processing Company and the West African Mills Company, a joint venture of Germany's Hosta Group of Companies and Ghana's Cocoa Board (Cocobod).

Currently there are up to five power cuts per day in Ghana. "Every time this happens you lose production and your machines suffer.

It is as though you switch off the engine of a car while driving at cruising speed," a source at one Ghana cocoa processing company told Reuters.

The two presidents also agreed to explore the possibility of Ivory Coast joining the West African Gas Pipeline Project, which currently involves Nigeria, Ghana, Togo and Benin.

Ghana has built a state-of-the-art combined cycle power station in Takoradi at a distance of about 150 km (100 miles) from an Ivorian field producing natural gas. The power station can be fired by gas but is currently using more expensive fuel.