Ivory Coast, Ghana to discuss cocoa sales

12:09 p.m. Jun 17, 1999 Eastern

ABIDJAN, June 17 (Reuters) - A senior Ghanaian delegation will be in Ivory Coast on July 14 or 15 to discuss how the two countries can coordinate cocoa sales in the 1999/2000 (Oct-Sept) season, Ivory Coast's trade minister said on Thursday.

Ivory Coast's cocoa sector is to be liberalised from the new season and government control over exports will end.

Guy-Alain Gauze, formerly commodities minister and now with a wider brief for foreign trade, told a business meeting the Ghanaian team would be led by Finance Minister Richard Kwame Peprah and John-Henry Newman, chief executive of the Ghana Cocoa Board.

He said the cocoa market perception was that from 1999/2000 Ivory Coast would give priority to spot sales.

He described that as ``very dangerous'' since spot sales tended to depress the market.

Ivory Coast, as the world's leading cocoa producer, had to ensure that liberalisation did not hurt prices, with leading producer countries ``getting together to rationalise their production,'' Gauze said.

In addition to Ghana, he mentioned Indonesia, Malaysia, Cameroon and Nigeria.

Ivory Coast would give priority to ``futures sales'' rather than spot sales, he said, giving no indication of how the government could achieve this in a liberalised market.

``Liberalisation does not imply a lack of discipline and regulation,'' Gauze said, adding that Ghana and Ivory Coast would inform each other when they were selling onto the market.