Nigeria Drops To Seventh Position As Cocoa Producer |PoliFocus

Nigeria has dropped to the seventh position from fourth as a top cocoa producer in the world, according to data made available by the International Cocoa Organisation.

The President, Cocoa Association of Nigeria, Mr. Sayina Riman, said the review of the rankings was made by the ICO based on the country’s 2015/2016 production projection of 190,000 metrictonnes.


“Nigeria has fallen from four to seven. It is shocking to us. The ranking was announced to us at a meeting that our 2015/2016 production figure leaves us at 190,000 metric tonnes,” he said.

According to the ICCO statistics, Nigeria occupied the fourth position in the 2013/2014 season based on its estimated production output of 230,000 metric tonnes after Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Indonesia.

Riman, who said that the 2015/2016 season yielded about 275,000 metric tonnes for the country, expressed optimism that the new planting season would yield between 280,000 metric tonnes and 300,000 metric tonnes provided that the production factors were favourable.

The output of 275,000 metric tonnes fetched the country about $792m in that period based on the ICCO daily price of $2,878.55 per tonne of cocoa beans on September 15, 2016.

This shows that cocoa production rose by 17 per cent from 235,000 metric tonnes in the 2014/2015 planting season to 275,000 metric tonnes in the 2015/2016 season.The production of individual countries, according tothe ICCO, is based on cocoa beans purchased or reaching the ports of the countries concerned and consequently, may differ from the harvested crop.

Riman, however, explained that many exporters were avoiding the ports and were smuggling cocoabeans out of the country, because they were discouraged by the earnings from the commodity, which had been restricted to N305 to $1 adopted as the interbank rate.

According to him, it is not profitable for exporters because the export business is done with loans at 29 per interest rate.He explained, “Last year, the drought adversely affected our cocoa output and secondly, the monetary policy affected us. We have the limitations of not having free access to our proceeds as they come and some cocoa beans arenow being smuggled to other countries so that exporters can have their proceeds there.

“What the CBN is doing, which is not acceptable to the export commodity sector, is that they still want us to change the export proceeds at the interbank rate. The parallel market rate is N420 to the dollar, while the interbank rate is N320.

“Who takes the N100 difference? We understand the system perfectly well that some people may be round-tripping the money.

We are borrowing money at 29 per cent interest rate and you are still asking people, without providing any form of incentive, to bring their money and sell at the interbank rate. This is affecting the commodity sector.” -Punch 

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